


In the End, It Doesn't Even Matter

by CatLover0



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aobajousai, F/M, I Shouldn't Be Allowed To Write, I don't mess around when it comes to $2, I wrote this fic b/c my friend said she'd give me $2 if i did, Nekoma, although this isn't really a real fanfic, but its still SIN, free from the sin that is writing fanfic, i could have lived a pure life free from sin, pls ignore this fic, serina why did you do this to me, some karasuno - Freeform, then pls read this fic, unless you know me irl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-08-10 06:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7834663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatLover0/pseuds/CatLover0
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iwaizumi finally meets a girl that's just right for him, and is able to get closer to her even with all his volleyball practice. However, Iwaizumi never would have guessed that he would watch her die right in front of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo I had vowed to myself to never write a fanfic b/c I really really don’t have the time. But then my friend said she’d give me 2 bucks if I wrote a fanfic where I shipped us with our favorite Haikyuu!! characters, and guess who’s about to be $2 richer! She said it only had to be 2,000 words, but since I can’t actually write anything concisely this started getting a lot longer than that. A lot longer. Oops lol. 
> 
> This is an AU where Seijoh (Aobajosai), Nekoma and Karasuno are the Parma city high schools (one city with 3 high schools). This way they all are close to each other, which is the only way this fanfic makes sense. Everything else is pretty much the same.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t own Haikyuu!! Also, this is my first fanfic, and my major is engineering which is basically the opposite of an English major, just keep that in mind. 
> 
> Leave me reviews if you want? Don’t think I’ll ever write fanfic again but hey I’d still like to improve at writing if possible. Okay have fun reading this trash.

Hajime Iwaizumi slowed his pace so that Oikawa could catch up to him. Their jog had started only 15 minutes ago, and this was the third time he had to wait for Oikawa. Not because Oikawa couldn’t keep up with him, no, Oikawa probably trained harder than anyone else on the team. It was simply because some girls on the other side of the street had spotted Oikawa and would yell his name, distracting him and causing him to slow down so that he could turn towards them and bask in the attention they so readily showered him with.

Iwaizumi sighed and slowed to a walk when he saw that Oikawa had come to a complete stop; this time the group they had come across contained one of the most popular girls in the school, and she too fawned over Oikawa. She really was gorgeous, and sometimes Iwaizumi questioned Oikawa’s sexuality when he refused to actually get serious with any of the girls, but he has now accepted the fact that Oikawa can’t give up the attention of the masses, and Iwaizumi knew the other girls would quickly lose interest in him the second he settled down. Plus, currently he only seemed to be genuinely interested in one particular girl, of course it had to be the girl his advances failed on: Kiyoko Shimizu (this is a canon fact look it up it’s on the wiki page). Sometimes Iwaizumi wondered if it was all just a game to him.

Iwaizumi stopped and took out his headphones despite the fact that one of his favorite songs had just come up on his play list, Mr. Brightside. He took his Iphone out of the running arm strap that held it firmly to his upper right arm so that he could run while listening to his music. He contemplated for a moment when he would have time to replace the cloth holder that was starting to fall apart due to excessive use. He took his phone out of the holder, admiring for just a second the Godzilla case that protected it, and then began scrolling through his recent messages, none of which were important enough for him to respond to at that moment, thanks to the fact that he couldn’t get a girlfriend with Oikawa being his best friend and always stealing every girl’s attention away. Not that he minded so much, he had enough to worry about at the moment with the next match of the Spring tournament quickly approaching. He needed to keep training and keep in shape and oh, that reminded him, continue jogging!

“Trashykawa, do you want to get beaten next week just because you were out of shape? Let’s get going!” Iwaizumi said only half angrily. He had been around Oikawa for so long that he’d grown quite the tolerance for Oikawa’s constant flirting. But sometimes, even he couldn’t stand it any longer. Iwaizumi put his phone back in the haphazard cloth strap, put his ear buds back in and began jogging again.

“Coming, coming Iwa-chan.” Oikawa waved goodbye to the girls, and they continued along their way.

Nearing a corner, Iwaizumi spotted in the distance Kiyoko-san walking a dog. Quickly glancing at Oikawa, he could tell that he hadn’t seen her yet, because if he had he would surely be heading in her direction in order to try flirting with her again. In order to avoid crossing paths with her, Iwaizumi quickly began to steer Oikawa so that he would make a turn down a street that was not part of the route they had planned. Oikawa, not caring where they ran, noticed Iwaizumi’s move and made the sharp turn around the corner so that they could head up the street Iwaizumi was directing him towards. But due to the overgrown shrubbery that ran right up to the corner of the property, both boys were unable to see the girl who was walking down that street and was just about to turn that very same corner in the opposite direction.

Iwaizumi collided with the girl sending her to the ground, luckily she was close enough to the edge of the sidewalk that she landed in the grass. In the next moment he heard two loud smacks as both his and her phone’s hit the pavement.

Oikawa, being the “gentleman” he was, quickly reached out his hand and offered the girl a smile (that Iwaizumi could see wasn’t very genuine) and asked if she was okay as he pulled her back to her feet. “I’m fine,” she stated in monotone, and then reached down to grab her phone and Iwaizumi did the same, thankful that both devices’ screens didn’t crack. He quickly checked the case to make sure he had the right device, and then put it in his pocket since the shoulder strap clearly was no longer reliable.

“Sorry about that, usually we are good at noticing our surroundings” Iwaizumi explained to her as she cleaned the dirt from her shorts. “Don’t worry about it, I’m fine and it was an accident” is all she said before she began her walk again, not feeling inclined to start a conversation with two guys who were clearly in the middle of a jog. Even if they weren’t jogging she wouldn’t have started a conversation, she wasn’t one to talk to strangers and besides she was supposed to be back at her house at 2 since Christine was coming over, and she did not want to be late even if they were just going to go study.

Iwaizumi looked at her for just a second longer, taking in her appearance to see if he recognized her at all. She had straight medium-short light brown hair the ended just above her shoulders, green eyes, was wearing a pink tank top and tan shorts, and was around their age. Not recognizing her as someone he’s seen in the hall at school, he decided that she probably was a high schooler who went to a different school in the district.

Something was off Iwaizumi realized, why wasn’t Oikawa flirting with this girl? He flirts with every and any girl their age (and some not their age), but when Iwaizumi looked to where Oikawa was just a second ago, he found that he was missing. Whipping his head in the direction he knew Kiyoko-san was coming from, he saw his best friend jogging toward the black haired beauty much to her very evident dismay.

Iwaizumi wished he had a volleyball that he could whip at that idiots head.

 

Hearing the front door open, Christine glanced up and saw Serina entering. She watched as Serina glanced at her then at her shorts, and headed up the stairs towards her room rather than towards where Christine was sitting in the kitchen. She came back down a moment later with her bookbag and purse in hand, and Christine noticed she changed her shorts.

“Ready to go?” Serina asked, her excitement for their destination evident. Christine couldn’t believe that both Serina and her didn’t know about the cat café that had opened up in Cleveland about 3 months ago. It was like everyone assumed they already knew about it and didn’t feel the need to tell them, even though they were both known to be crazy cat lovers among their fellow high schoolers. Luckily Christine had overheard a conversation about it having great coffee and had screamed a little in the hallway in shock and excitement before rushing to tell Serina of its existence.

Christine grabbed her bookbag and the two got in her red half decayed 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse and started the 20 minute drive to cat heaven.

“Wanted a more suitable pair of shorts for the cats the lay on?” Christine inquired.

“I fell during my walk and wanted to change”

“You’re usually not that clumsy.” Her friend claimed to have no sense of balance which Christine only half believed. 

“Yeah well it’s only because I was turning a blind corner and ran into someone.”

“Oh that sucks.”

“Yeah and it caused me to drop my phone which freaked me out since I only have my Godzilla case on it right now.”

“Oh instead of your Lifeproof case? But the screen didn’t break?”

“Yeah it’s fine.”

Serina began pulling out her phone, figuring she had a few messages she needed to catch up on since she liked to ignore them during her walk and just listen to her music. But before she could even hit the home button she was distracted by Christine turning up the music since Linkin Park’s In the End had come on and the two were obliged to yell the lyrics whenever they heard the song.

Walking into the cat café, both girls didn’t really know what to expect. They found that it was a surprisingly large café, filled with all sorts of structures for the cats to climb and sit on, and lots of plants that were placed strategically around the café in order to give the costumers some privacy.

After picking up their ordered frappes from the counter, the two sat down at a table farther back in the restaurants and took a moment to bask in the happiness that can only be achieved when surrounded by cats. There were so many different kinds! Long fur, short fur, black, white, gray, striped, tortoiseshell, calico, speckled, some with smushed faces, some were as big as maine coons, and there was even a munchkin cat. Christine couldn’t resist squealing a bit and Serina had a huge smile on her face. After petting some of the cats sitting close by, the two were satisfied and both wordlessly confirmed that this would become there number one study spot.

In the next second Christine was in study mode. She pulled out her AP chemistry textbook and binder and started to review the material that would be on Monday’s exam. Serina soon followed suit after appreciating the cats for one last second, but rather than ap chem, she was studying for an upcoming exam in her Medical class.

After about a half hour, Serina was ready for a break. Glancing at Christine, who was definitely still going at it, she pulled out her phone so that she wouldn’t disturb her. She clicked the home button and was very confused. Why was the lock screen a picture of the new Godzilla, the one that starred in the new Godzilla movie that had just come out in theaters this weekend, and not a picture of cat iron man (which was made by one of her favorite artists on tumblr thanks to the hype that the latest captain America movie had caused). 

“Christine did you change my lock screen picture when I wasn’t looking?”

“Huh? No, I don’t even think I could get your phone away from you long enough to do so without you noticing.”

“Then…how is this my lock screen???”

Christine looked up and studied the Godzilla pic. “Because that new movie you’re dragging me and Lorraine to go see with you tomorrow inspired you to change it to that?”

“Uhhh I seriously don’t remember changing it.”

“Well unlock the phone and check when you saved that pic in your photos. Maybe you changed it at like 4 or 5am because you were still up for some ungodly reason and just don’t remember.”

Serina swiped to the right and then she knew something was seriously wrong – there was no password screen. This was not her phone.

“Yeah this isn’t my phone.” Now she had Christine’s attention. “You serious bro” Christine said, slightly alarmed. “Yeah this phone doesn’t have a password and the apps are all set up completely different than mine.”

“Let me see it.” Serina passed the phone to her and Christine glanced through the apps. Facebook was a good place to start. She clicked the app and went to the person’s personal page.

“Hajime Iwaizumi” Christine read to Serina. “Isn’t he in medical? He goes to Seijoh. He’s on the volleyball team there.”

Of course Christine had some information on him, she seemed to know everybody these days. Especially now that they were seniors and had been at Nekoma for nearly four years, she had gotten to know so many people; students, teachers and administrators alike.

“That name actually sounds familiar. Yeah I think he’s in Pharmacy.” Serina was in Allied Health, and she had only a vague knowledge of the other people in the other sections of medical. “He might have actually been in my class last year.”

“How the frickle frack do you have his phone?”

“It must have been when we bumped into each other this afternoon when I was on my walk” Serina deduced, “I didn’t notice because we had the same phone case and I didn’t even play my music after that because I was paranoid about dropping it again and actually cracking the screen. He was jogging with some other guy and we collided when they turned a blind corner that I was on the other side of.”

Christine blinked and processed this new information. They definitely needed to get Serina’s phone back – and soon. It was filled with all sorts of weeb crap that could literally destroy Serina’s reputation as a normal person, and her’s too since Serina had so much dirt on her.

“Your phone is locked right???” Christine asked, “Well yeah” Serina responded, of course it was, there was no way she would leave that literally trash bin unlocked and accessible to the world. “As long as it went to sleep after I dropped it, it should be locked.”

“Phew…Okay well let’s use the ‘Find my iPhone’ thing, you have that right? I bet he has your phone at his house or something. Let’s just drive over there and get it.” Christine was slightly disappointed that they would have to cut their visit to the cat café short, but what had to done had to be done.

“Yeah okay let me get out my computer.”

Christine, now calming since they had a solution to the problem, let her mind wander. So this dude and Serina had the same phone case, eh?

Christine glanced down at the phone and unlocked it. Why isn’t his phone locked? Like that was really concerning, someone could really steal his phone. Deciding that he brought this invasion of privacy on himself, she clicked on his photos. Not too many selfies, he didn’t seem like the selfie type anyways. A few pics were of Oikawa, clearly pics Iwaizumi did not take, which reminded her that those two were good friends. Oikawa was in Christine’s AP Chem class so she was quite familiar with the very flirtatious and often childish senior from Seijoh that drove over to Nekoma in the afternoon for the class.

She scrolled through some more and found some popular memes, probably to use in iMessage chats, and some screenshotted posts from twitter of superhero stuff. So he likes superheroes, eh? Christine was liking this dude more and more. “Hey Serina, there’s a bunch of pictures of superhero stuff from twitter, so he definitely he likes superheroes. And he’s pretty hot, don’t ya think?” Christine said as she showed Serina a selfie.

“That’s not too surprising, quite a few guys do these days. And yeah he’s attractive but I’m not interested in being in a relationship right now.” Christine gave her an -_- look, Serina could tell what Christine was trying to do. “Don’t go through his pics! That’s rude.”

“Yeah, yeah I’ll stop.” Christine said although she continued to mess around with the phone for another minute before she finally put it to sleep. 

“Hey Christine, look at this” Christine got up and walked to the other side of the table so she could look at Serina’s Mac’s screen. The Find my iPhone app had pinpointed the location, but instead of being in a random house in Parma or Seven Hills the location was in the middle of the street, actually the middle of a highway.

“Reload the page” Serina did as instructed, and this time the iPhone had moved closer to them, it looked like Iwaizumi had the same idea and was heading here now.

“Well, looks like we don’t have to leave to go get your phone if he’s just gonna come to us.”

“Yeah I guess.”

And with that Christine got back to studying, she wanted to get this out of the way since she’d be hanging out with Serina again tomorrow, and not to do schoolwork.

About 10 minutes later Christine noticed Iwaizumi roaming around the café clearly looking for them. She called him over to their table and he exchanged phones with Serina.

“Sorry about that” he said, “I didn’t even realize until I got home since we have the same phone case. You’ve got good taste in movies.” Damn, was he flirting? He had definitely been around Oikawa too much. Not that he could deny the fact that he thought she was cute. Plus after seeing her lock screen pic was of one of his favorite superheroes, he honestly thought that she must be a cool person.

Serina made a wordless response to acknowledge the comment, but Christine wasn’t about to let this conversation end just yet, especially because she was pretty sure he had just flirted with her bestie. She was already trying to think of a ship name for these two. IwaRine? SerIzume? SerJime?

Luckily Iwaizumi actually continued talking so Christine didn’t have to intervene just yet, “Hey what’s your name again?” he asked Serina, “Sorry I’m bad with names. I didn’t recognize you earlier but now I remember you’re in medical.”

It wasn’t surprising that Iwaizumi didn’t know Serina’s name, she tended to be pretty quiet in class. “Oh, I’m Serina.”

“Serina, that’s right! And I know you Christine.” Just like everyone did lol. 

“Feel free to call her Serina-chan, Iwaizumi-kun.” Christine said and then wiggled her eyebrows at Serina, who was glaring at her. Iwaizumi raised his eyebrows as he observed the two amusingly.

“Haha alright, Serina-chan it is.”

“Please don’t call me that. Just call me Serina.”

Christine just had to add in “Honestly I feel like we are all friends already, bonded by our love for superheroes and Godzilla, you can use the nickname only us besties can use: Serine rine.”

“Okay well then let him use your nickname too, crisine.”

Iwaizumi chuckled at the duo and then looked around. Luckily he wasn’t allergic to cats or this place would be a literal death trap. He didn’t really care one way or the other for the animal, he wasn’t really much of an animal person at all, but he had to admit that the cats were pretty cute. “Hey what even is this place?” He asked, having not even looked at the sign when he entered the building.

Christine, being a talker, really wanted to answer but she knew this was a golden opportunity to force Serina to talk to him, so instead she ignored him and instead looked down at her phone as if she had just gotten a text. Serina gave Christine another glare because she was catching on to what she was doing, but not wanting to be rude, she said, “It’s a cat café, they’re pretty big in other countries, but there are only a couple in the U.S.” Serina could have told him what she actually knew to be true, that really the only country they were really known to be big in was Japan, but she didn’t want to say anything that would give away even a hint of her weeaboo status.

“Pretty much it’s a place where you can get coffee and enjoy the company of a bunch of cats. Definitely a cool spot for us cat lovers.” Christine followed up, disappointed with Serina’s lack of an explanation. “Plus it’s cheaper than Starbucks” Serina added in.

“Now that makes the drive worth it” Iwaizumi said only half-jokingly. He had a pretty bad addiction to Starbucks, it was one of his only guilty pleasures with the strict diet he was on during volleyball season. “Okay well I got to get going, with the spring tournament going on our team has practices even on the weekends.”

“Okay, see ya.”

“Bye.”

And with that he took his leave, or was about to when Serina said one more thing: “Hey Iwaizumi” He had to admit, he liked that she didn’t use any honorifics with his name as if they were already friends. Although he still had this fear in the back of his mind that if he tried actually talking with her he’d just lose her like every other girl he talked to to Oikawa, the damn bastard. He turned back toward them as she said “Why don’t you have your phone locked? That’s pretty dangerous.”

“Oh I actually had just temporarily took off the password lock so that Oikawa could wake it up from sleep mode if he needed to, he was using its timer when me and Kindaichi (A/N: turnip head) were doing a mile long race. I forgot to reset the pass lock afterwards, thanks for reminding me.” Iwaizumi took a second to put the lock back on his phone before he forgot again, but before doing that he looked at what apps were open. Christine was smart enough to cover her tracks but left Facebook open to make it not obvious by closing everything. “You guys didn’t go through my phone, right?” Iwaizumi asked, just to make sure, even though he only saw fb open.

“Nah we wouldn’t do that” Christine said with fake innocence, “besides Serina’s too good of a person to let me even if I wanted to.” Of course it was a lie but lying and acting it out to be the truth was one of Christine’s talents, and it allowed her to get along with lots of people because she could be fake around anyone in just the right way to get them to like her. This helped her become pretty popular at school but she only had a few real friends who knew the truth: that she was a weeabo and obsessed with Pokémon. 

“Okay, not like I really have anything to hide.”

“Yeah you don’t have to hide that you like superheroes” figuring it was best to be a little honest with him and lowkey admit that she went through his photos. “We both like them too, especially Serina, her Dad likes to collect comic books so she’s really up to date with all of that” Christine was trying really hard to sell her at this point.

And it was working. “Really? That’s cool. I saw that Iron Man was your background. Is he your favorite?”

“He’s one of my favorites, it’s hard to pick when there are so many. But I do have a favorite team, which would be the Fantastic Four.”

“I really like them too” Iwaizumi said with a smile, but in the next second his face became pained as he said, “I couldn’t believe how bad the latest Fantastic Four movie was though. Fox really butchered it, and all just to keep the rights to the superheroes.”

“Don’t even get me started. The only thing that was okay about that movie was that they didn’t mess up the sibling relationship. But the rest of it was garbage.”

“At least Marvel has most of their other heroes back under their ownership. And they’re doing things right, Civil War was really good.”

Christine tuned out after that, clearly her interventions were no longer needed. The two continued to chat, Iwaizumi pulling up an unused chair from a table close by so he could sit and talk for a minute. Christine was really liking where this was going, and it was about time that Serina got herself a boyfriend. It was about time she got herself one too she thought, sighing slightly, but her long time crush and next door neighbor would never see her that way. Whateves she was more career focused anyways, an independent weeb who didn’t need no man. Just wanted a man.

Christine looked up when she saw Iwaizumi getting up, apologizing about having to cut the conversation short or else he really was going to be late for his 5 o’clock practice. Serina and her both said their goodbyes again and he took his leave.

“So what do you think of him now that you’ve had an actual conversation with him, and about superheroes no less?” Christine asked with a smirk on her face and while wiggling her eyebrows.

Serina just smiled and blushed a bit in response.

 

Oikawa was mildly concerned that Iwaizumi wasn’t 15 minutes early to practice like he always was. The Seijoh gym was filled with activity: the freshmen and sophomores were finishing setting up the nets and the juniors were playing a scrimmage with some of the extra underclassmen who weren’t needed to help set up.

With practice starting in just 5 minutes, he was about to call him when the gym door shot open and Iwaizumi walked in, a small smile on his face, appearing lost in thought. Someone was happy.

“Hey Iwa-chan, nice of you to join us” Oikawa said even though his friend was still technically early.

Iwaizumi simply nodded at Oikawa and went to set down his stuff. He jogged back over towards Oikawa and yelled, “Gather up everyone, let’s start doing stretches.”

The team all gathered up on one side of the gym and as they did the coach went over the plan for the evening practice. Even though Oikawa was captain of the team, as vice captain Iwaizumi did most of the directing besides the coaches at practices since he was more respected by the team than his best friend.

After the coach had finished explaining things, the group broke into sets of twos to do some drills. Iwaizumi paired up with Oikawa like always, and just after they started he said “Hey Oikawa, do you remember that girl I bumped into earlier when we were jogging?”

“Yeah the brunette? Isn’t her name Serina?” Oikawa had a lot of facebook friends, especially female fb friends. Plus he had overheard Christine talking about the girl who he assumed was her close friend in class a couple of times.

“Yeah it is. Turns out when our phones both fell we accidently picked up the wrong ones. I didn’t notice because she has the same type of phone and phone case as me. So I went to go return it to her this afternoon, and let’s just say we hit it off. Unfortunately I forgot to get her number, but I sent her a fb friend re-”

“Hey who’s this Serina girl? She go to our school?” Kindaichi (turnip head) interrupted, he was the next closest person to Iwaizumi and apparently could overhear their conversation.

“No she doesn’t and don’t even think about it Kindaichi, don’t even look her up on fb” Iwaizumi said forcefully. He must be serious about her if he was getting this possessive after talking to her just once Oikawa thought. 

“Anyways, Oikawa you better not flirt with her okay? I’m serious about this.”

“Okay Iwa-chan, but if she flirts with me first I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep my promise.” Iwaizumi caught the volleyball they had been passing and whipped it at Oikawa, although the violent action went unfulfilled since Oikawa reacted in time to catch it.

It wasn’t his fault that he was stunningly attractive and a smooth talker. Oikawa knew that he had messed relationships up in the past for his best friend, but honestly it seemed like those girls were just using Iwaizumi to try and get with himself anyways. And he wasn’t about to let his best friend be used like that, even when in the end Iwaizumi was mad at him and hurt because of him.

“Bro, don’t mess this up for me.”

“Iwa-chan, would I ever do such a thing?” Oikawa said with an innocent smile, Iwaizumi was really glaring at him now. But then his face softened.

“Dude she’s into superheroes and likes Godzilla, I really think we would be a good fit.” Wow Iwaizumi really was serious about this girl.

“Well good luck to you Iwaizumi, although your courting skills might be a bit dull. What it’s been 2 years now since your last actual girlfriend?” Oikawa wasn’t counting the 2 or 3 other girls that Iwaizumi was with for only about a week since Oikawa had “accidently” flirted with them and all of a sudden their interest shifted.

“And it’s been what, 3 years for you?” Iwaizumi retorted. Ouch. He still had trouble with the fact that his last gf had dumped him just because he was too obsessed with volleyball. What’s wrong with liking volleyball? Iwaizumi must have seen his face dampen, even though he only let it for just a second.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to go there. It’s just that I think things could actually work out with this girl.”

Even though they were in the middle of the Spring tournament, Oikawa definitely wanted to support his best friend with this. Even he was realistic enough to know that high school volleyball wasn’t going to last forever, and that there were other things in life worth pursuing. And if Iwaizumi was this serious she must be something, although he had his doubts since Iwaizumi really only had begun talking to her today, but Oikawa knew that she was in medical which he had overheard Christine saying (she was a really loud talker). And if she was friends with Christine then she probably didn’t have ulterior motives, Oikawa couldn’t really imagine Christine having those kinds of friends (although he was a bit suspicious of Christine because of what he overheard her saying from time to time. T.P.ing? He must have heard wrong).

Oikawa gave a nod to show his understanding, the simple gesture getting more across to Iwaizumi than his words could, just as Kindaichi said “Yeah no promises from me until you guys are actually going out.” Oikawa had to resist from bursting out laughing, this guy honestly thought that he was some big shot just because he was a sophomore who actually got time on the court. It had definitely gone to his head, especially with Seijoh’s recent winning streak.

This time the volleyball Iwaizumi whipped wasn’t aimed at Oikawa’s head.

 

Serina saw Christine glance at the clock just as the Free! Eternal Summer ending song began to play. 10:30pm was what the clock read, it was already getting late for her. Her friend never wanted to stay awake past 11, even on weekends. Serina honestly didn’t understand what motivated the girl to go to bed so early when she could stay up watching anime or scrolling through tumblr all night.

They had just finished watching the Free! Eternal Summer OVA because somehow Lorraine hadn’t seen it yet, which was just a crime considering it was one of the best episodes in the entire series and so trashy that Serina couldn’t help loving it. How were the producers able to fit almost every ship imaginable into just one episode? It was definitely a masterpiece.

“Let’s watch Howl’s moving castle” Lorraine suggested, repositioning herself in what was known to be Serina’s younger brother Ulrik’s seat in the couch made up of individual chairs. Of course they all somehow ended up at her house again, but Serina guessed it was inevitable when her living room was this size, with a TV that big, and surround sound speakers on top of that. Plus the fact that her family owned every popular movie in existence didn’t help (and a lot of not so popular movies as well).

“You guys can but I want to leave by 11, so if you’re gonna watch something that long I’ll just leave now” Christine responded. She was already looking tired, all snuggled into her blanket in Serina’s dad’s spot. She would probably fall asleep if they didn’t watch something that’d catch her attention.

“Uggh Christine why you gotta go to bed so early? Just stay up with us for once” Lorraine pleaded. Yeah like that was going to happen. Serina had known Christine long enough to understand that she was just more of a morning person, and wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

“Maybe some other time I would be willing” was her unconvincing response, which Lorraine replied to with “you always say that” which was true, “come on just stay up until 12.”

“Fine, but that’s it.” Lorraine smiled at her success.

“Okay so what do you guys want to watch” Serina said, getting everyone back on topic. But in the next second Christine changed the topic.

“Hey Lorraine, guess who Serina was flirting with today when we went to the cat café?” Serina knew it was coming, she was surprised Christine didn’t mention it until now in fact, she must have forgotten. Well might as well get this conversation over with.

“Whaaaat? Serina was flirting with a boy?” Serina expected Lorraine’s disbelieving response. She just didn’t really talk to guys ever, let alone flirt with them. She was more shy in school and never really stood out in class, plus she never went out or was even dragged out since her best friends never really went out either (except for Holly, but Serina was not about to go to the kind of parties Holly went to).

“Yeah and he likes Godzilla and superheroes, it’s a match made in heaven!” Christine said.

“Serina is this true?”

“I definitely did not flirt with him, we were just talking. But yeah he likes Godzilla and superheroes so I thought he was pretty cool. Plus he agreed that the latest Fantastic Four movie sucked but that the team itself is really cool. From our conversation, I could tell that he kept up with some comic books even.”

“So what’s his name? Do I know him? You friends with him on facebook?” Lorraine questioned rapid fire style. Uugh why did we have to talk about this? Couldn’t her friends just let her be, it probably wouldn’t turn into anything anyways. Besides she honestly just wanted to be friends with him.

“Hajime Iwaizumi, he goes to Seijoh so I doubt you know him Lorraine” Christine began explaining, “He comes to our school in the morning for medical though, but he’s in Pharmacy not Allied Health unfortunately.”

“Yeah I think I had medical with him last year now that I’m thinking about it” Serina said with a shrug, she was bad with remember both names and faces, so even though they were in the same three period class together for a year she had somehow forgotten his existence until earlier today.

“So you know what he’s like?” Lorraine asked, suggesting that Serina got to know him a bit in class.

“Well he always seemed kinda quiet in class, kinda serious if I remember right. I do remember him always scoring pretty high on exams, and he was the only other person in our class besides me who got a 350 on the medical terminology exam.” Huh, she was surprising herself with how much she remembered about him.

“She didn’t even use honorifics with his name, went straight to calling him Iwaizumi, establishing them as already being close” Christine told Lorraine.

“Oh I didn’t even realize I had done that.” Serina honestly hadn’t. “Can’t say I’m surprised to hear that” Christine responded.

“Here’s some pics Lorraine” Christine said as she showed Lorraine her phone, probably had pulled up his fb.

“He’s hot! I approve Serine rine” Lorraine said as she scrolled through the pics. “He plays volleyball, just like my ex.” Lorraine only had one exboyfriend, Tetsuro Kuroo, Christine’s next door neighbor. Serina didn’t know all the details, but she did know that the two had gone out back when we were all in middle school. The relationship only lasted a month, Lorraine claimed that she broke up with him because he just wouldn’t spend any time with her since he was so busy with volleyball and his studies. But Serina knew the actual reason was because Lorraine had tried to introduce Kuroo to Kpop and he just wasn’t interested in it (Christine later questioned Kuroo about it, and Serina had heard that he told her that he straight up did not like it, thought it was weird listening to songs in other languages), and that was just too big a part of Lorraine’s life for her boyfriend to not also at least be neutral about it. Since then, Lorraine claimed she was only interested in Korean boys.

“Tell Lorraine what you guys talked about” Christine demanded, she probably wanted to know herself since Serina had seen her get back into study mode once her and Iwaizumi had really started talking.

“Fine, well after talking about the horrible F4 movie, we started discussing…”

 

After getting all the details from Serina, Christine noticed that it was already 11:40. If she left right now she could get home and in bed by 12:05, but now the conversation was taking a different turn.

“So Christine, any guy you like? Who you gonna go to Prom with?” Lorraine asked.

She couldn't care less, in fact Christine was debating asking one of the nerdy guys to go with her figuring he wouldn't have the guts to ask her and she kinda just wanted a date for the event even if she wasn’t attracted to the guy.

But she was tired and she wasn't thinking straight and she always ends up feeling like sharing more info than she ever normally would when she was in this kind of state.

“Yeah there's a guy I've had a crush on for a little while”

Christine saw Lorraine's face make a !!!! expression. She regretted her words instantly knowing that her friends were about to pry as much info out of her as possible.

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t want to say” Christine said as she hid in her blanket a bit, embarrassed about admitting it. Plus she really couldn’t say it in front of Lorraine.

“Do we know him?” Aaaand now they were playing 20 questions.

“Maybe, he goes to our school.”

“Is he in our grade?” Oh great, now Serina was joining in the questioning. Well she might as well give her friends a little information to stew over since she wasn’t going to say his name.

“Um, yeah he is.”

“Calculator Adam. He moved in right next door to you, it’s gotta be fate.” Well that wasn't a bad guess. The nerdy kid had moved in at the beginning of junior year right next door to Christine, and although they had become fast friends that’s all there was to it. “Nope.”

“Really? But you're both so nerdy and would be really cute together.” And the whole school thought the same thing, which just weirded Christine out. But he honestly wasn’t her type.

“Sorry but that’s not who, although I might ask Adam to prom just so I can have a date because I can never see it actually working out with the guy I like.” She just didn’t have the guts to confess, and honestly she couldn’t see him seeing her that way. She had come to some level of acceptance of this fact, but still had trouble getting over her crush on him especially with how often she saw him.

“Nooo don’t give up just like that, you haven’t even told us his name! We might know more than you.” Unlikely. But it was encouraging to hear her friends say that, as if Christine should still have hope.

“What does he look like?” Now describing him would be a dead giveaway. No one had hair quite like him. Was it emo? Was it jockish? Was it just plain bedhead?

“Naah it doesn’t matter guys just drop it” Christine said as she stood up, collecting up her things a bit.

“Come ooon, tell us his name.”

“Nah.”

“Bro,” Lorraine said with an annoyed tone, Christine could be stubborn. “Just tell us his name, why do you care if we know?” She only cared because he was Lorraine’s ex, and she really didn’t want to threaten her friendship over a boy. Chicks before dicks! Hoes before bros! Uteruses before duderuses!

“What do we have to do to get you to tell us?” Lorraine asked, looking a bit more desperate since Christine was standing and had just looked at the clock which read 11:50.

“Uuum” Christine mulled it over for just a sec, and then her tired brain said “Promise you won’t get mad.”

“Get mad?”

“Mad?”

The two responded in confusion. “Who could you possibly like that would make either of us mad?” Serina questioned, “Iwaizumi?”

“Nope definitely not my type. Plus I ship him and Serina.”

“Hmmm. Someone one of us would be mad about.” Lorraine said with a contemplative look. “Ben?”

“Heck no”

“Jacob?” Serina pitched in. 

“That's a stretch.”

“Oh my god I know who it is, or at least I have a pretty good guess” Christine's anxiety spiked, did Lorraine really know? 

“Is he your next door neighbor?” F***. Christine should have known they'd guess eventually. But she chose lying rather than admitting, she really was worried and didn't want to have to pick between him and Lorraine.

“-nah” Dang it, she had hesitated. 

“Oh my god you thought I'd be mad. Dude we broke up 4 years ago I'm so over that plus honestly it was never gonna work out. But yeah I’m over that and I don’t see him that way at all anymore. It's fine girl go for it!”

“Wait really?” Dang was that a trap? Because if so it worked.

“Haha oh my god I was right!” Lorraine proclaimed, happy about her success. Was she really not mad?

“Yeah I've liked him for a while know...and I hate myself everyday for it because he can be a really annoying jerk.” 

“I bet driving him to school was nice” Lorraine said while wiggling her eyebrows. 

“I'm not gonna deny it, it was nice having a reason to talk to him and see him every morning and after school a lot too. But I'm pretty sure his car’s gonna be fixed soon.” She had been driving him because his car had broken down when...he was racing her. It just was a spur of the moment kind of thing. She had been driving home from a con in Columbus, and he was coming back from an away volleyball game in the same area. After counting to make sure she had passed all of the state troopers that should statistically be the last state trooper, since Christine was not one to speed without knowing that her chance of getting a ticket was minimal, Christine comfortably decided she could speed the rest of the way home. But when she saw Kuroo’s red mustang up ahead, she slowed and confirmed that it really was, and found that Kenma was also in the car. After exchanging glances, they both knew what was about to take place. Christine was driving her Mitsubishi Eclipse, and wasn't sure if the 14 year old car could handle going over 95mph, but she was willing to find out. So she beeped to signify the start of the race and slammed the gas petal. Her car took off but Kuroo quickly caught up, speeding up so he could get around the car he was previously driving behind. They got to a mostly empty stretch of highway and he got back in the middle lane so he could try to pass her and they both started really testing the limits of their vehicles. They were both going around 110mph, when all of a sudden Kuroo lost major speed. His engine had overheated and some white smoke was coming from beneath the hood of his car. After both parties had pulled over on the side of the highway, Kuroo opened the hood of his car and quickly confirmed what the white smoke had already hinted at- radiator problem. He was able to get his car home that day by duct taping the hose that had blown and using extra water he had brought for his match as temporary radiator fluid. Unfortunately, to keep the car from overheating again he had to blast the heat all the way back and of course it had to be one of those freak hot days in March that Ohio seemed to get every year: It was in the mid 80s. Kenma ended up coming in Christine’s car and sat next to the still sleeping Lorraine playing his DS all the way back. They got the car home but Kuroo was pretty pissed that it was going to have to go to the shop, so Christine offered to give him rides to and from school until it was fixed since she felt partially responsible. 

“Okay well now that you know who I like, what about you Lorraine?” No way was Christine leaving until she got something juicy out of Lorraine. Serina pitched in a “Yeah Lorraine” in support. 

“Eeeh I’m telling you guys, I’m still only interested in Korean boys.” That Ktrash. Still only thinking about her Kpop groups.

“Really no one? Who you gonna go to prom with?”

“I’ll find someone. There has got to be at least one Korean guy in our area.”  
Christine laughed at Lorraine’s determination. She glance up at the clock and saw that it was already past midnight, and since the conversation had lulled she figured this was aa good time as any to take her leave. 

“I’m gonna head out, see you guys tomorrow.”

“Okay, good night”

“Goodnight!”

She drove home and found that her parents had left the light on for her. The back door to the house had been left unlocked since one of her cats was out on the back porch, ready to come in for the evening. And he wasn’t the only one. 

A pure black cat sat next to her pure white cat. The black cat had medium long fur, while her white cat had medium short. This cat was someone’s in the neighborhood, that’s all Christine knew, it definitely had to be domesticated with how nice it was around people. She had taken a liking to the cat ever since she first saw her about a year ago, and would feed it some catnip when she was giving her own cats some when she saw her around. She was a very friendly little gal and would come and rub against her legs, and would even come over sometimes in the evening to sleep in Christine’s bed for the night. She would always let her out when she got up early the next day in hopes that she would go home to her real owner before they began to worry. 

“Smudge, Cockroach, come on inside!” And with that the two bounded in the house. The reason behind naming the black stray Cockroach was because she had met a black cat with a similar personality with that name while volunteering at the Animal Protection League. She thought it was the funniest name she had come across yet, and had wanted to adopt the kitty but her dad would not allow it. But now she had this little kitty to fill her spot, even if it was only part-time.

Both cats wandered towards her room as she quickly got ready for bed, and once she jumped in they curled up on either side of her and the three quickly fell into a deep sleep.


	2. Steak ’n Shake Impromptu Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains:
> 
> Serjime! Serjime! Serjime!  
> Some kTRASH,  
> And some highkey creeping in a local public library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Merry Christmas hoes! Dang cannot believe I’m actually continuing this story. But there is nothing I'd rather do with my free time other than torture my friends with this fic. Lorraine I’m so happy you are gonna be a main character now :) like, honestly you deserve this. You deserve to be full on tortured. 
> 
> Note: I use {Name} for texting conversations, and [Name] for tumblr messenger conversations.

Serina pulled up in front of Christine’s home and parked in the street. Her friend was sitting on the front porch, her purse ready and car keys in hand. After exiting her car, she walked up to join Christine, but only after stopping to pet one of Christine’s cats who was creeping around the bushes in front of the porch. Serina takes a seat next to Christine and gets comfy because she knows Lorraine is going to be late because of who she is as a person.

“Nice Godzilla tank top,” Christine comments. “Thanks.” Serina had made sure to wear it for the movie. Christine, unlike Serina, had not dressed for this very important occasion. Christine had her hair up in a bun like she always did, just a few strands of her very curly brown hair dropping out of it, and was wearing a bright pink sweatshirt with the NASA logo on the front, and a pair of dark blue skinny jeans. Apparently her friend was a lot colder than Serina was, it was 50 degrees out this was great weather Serina thought to herself.

Today they were finally going to go see the new Godzilla movie. Serina had been looking forward to this for over a year, ever since she had seen the news that it was being made. She watched all the trailers as they were released and got a general idea of what the movie was going to be about, pretty much Godzilla fighting Space Godzilla, and that ridiculous premise made her all the more excited.

After Lorraine arrived just 5 minutes late instead of her usual 15 to 20, they got into Christine’s car and made their way to Cinemark. They were there plenty early and were able to get seats in their favorite row: the row at the front of the back section that had the guardrail that they all liked to put their feet on.

Serina was in the middle of her friends, in the centermost seat in the row since her friends knew that she would want that seat so that she could have the best view of the movie. With Christine on her right and Lorraine on her left, Serina got comfortable and started watching the trailers that had begun playing after the lights in the room had dimmed. People were still shuffling in and she noticed that some people had sat a couple of seats away from both Christine and Lorraine. Must be a lot of people coming to enjoy this movie too.

The Angry Birds Movie, X-men Apocalypse, and the all female Ghostbusters movie were featured in the trailers. This reminded Serina that the X-men movie was actually coming out next weekend; she would definitely be seeing that as soon as possible.

As the movie began, Serina sat back so she could immerse herself in the movie that she had been so eagerly waiting for.

 

[]

 

Iwaizumi is pissed as he walks into the theater with Oikawa at his side. After their morning run, he decided he would try and convince Oikawa to go see the new Godzilla movie with him. He didn’t want to go see the movie alone, and none of his other friend would be interested at all, so that left just Oikawa. Plus, since it was Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla, he knew that he had a chance at convincing his best friend since that nerd was obsessed with all things space-related. However it had taken a lot of convincing and now they were practically late and couldn’t get the seats he had wanted: the middle of the front row of the back section with the guardrail that he could prop his feet up on, but luckily there were still seats open in that row on the end.

The two hours passed by a little too quickly for Iwaizumi’s liking, and before he knew it the credits began to play. As a habit, Iwaizumi stayed seated since, although this isn’t a Marvel movie, he didn’t want to miss an after-credits scene if there is one. He grabs Oikawa’s arm as his friend gets up forcing him to sit back down, “Not so fast, we have to see if there’s a teaser.” Oikawa sits back down with a huff and slightly annoyed look on his face, although the fact that he doesn't start complaining immediately indicates that he is satisfied with the amount of outer space that was in the movie. The theater begins to clear out, just the superhero fans remaining.

Unfortunately his patience is left unrewarded as there is no scene hinting at what the next Godzilla movie would entail, or if there even will be one. The lights brighten and Iwaizumi is getting up and starts following Oikawa towards the exit when he hears a familiar voice, “Hey is that you Iwaizumi-kun?”

He turns around and sees Serina, Christine, and another short girl who is clearly of Filipino decent; he can tell from her brown skin, black shoulder length wavy-curly hair and dark brown eyes. “Hey Serina, Christine, I guess I can’t say I’m surprised to see you here.”

Christine looks distracted by her phone all of a sudden, and just before the pause in conversation becomes awkward Serina says, “How’s it going Iwaizumi?”

“Pretty good, I really enjoyed that movie. Finally us in the Godzilla fandom get another movie after 10 years without one.”

“Hey want to go to Steak’n’Shake with us so we can all talk about the movie a bit?” Christine suggests. She pulls some papers out of her purse, holding them up proudly, and proclaims, “I’ve got coupons!”

Iwaizumi shrugs and looks at Oikawa, who was idling next to him and taking this all in. “Sure I’m in, what about you?”

“Yeah, I can take a one meal break from my diet for the chance to talk to some beautiful ladies,” Oikawa says flirtatiously. Iwaizumi rolls his eyes at that comment and resists the urge to punch him.

Christine turned back towards the other girl with them, and quickly introduced her. “By the way, this is Lorraine. She’s also in our grade and goes to Nekoma with me and Serina. Lorraine, this is Oikawa-san and Iwaizumi-kun. Iwaizumi-kun is in medical with Serina, and Oikawa-san is in AP Chemistry with me.”

“Yeah I’ve seen Oikawa-san around school before, and you look familiar too Iwaizumi-san.” Lorraine says. (Of course Iwaizumi looked familiar, she had spent a good while creeping through his facebook last night after hearing about Serina’s run in with him and now she was quite familiar with him (•̀ᴗ•́) and he was even hotter in person, she definitely approved.)

“Nice to meet you, Lorraine-chan,” Oikawa says with his charmer smile, as Iwaizumi nods to acknowledge her.

“Want to go to the Steak’n’Shake that’s just up the hill by the highway?” Serina asks.

“Sure I know the one, we’ll meet you guys there,” Iwaizumi replies with a smile. He's glad that he had run into Serina for a third time in two days. Recently, luck has been on his side.

 

[]

 

As the group exits the theater, Oikawa took another look at Lorraine, quickly running his eyes up and down her body. She was really cute, but so were a lot of girls. He wonders for just a moment if she was possibly her. He thought that though about every new girl he met and who went to a high school in the district. He had yet to figure out a good way to tell if a girl was her, especially since he didn't want Iwaizumi to catch on to what he was doing and start asking questions.

She glances at him when she noticed him looking at her. She hesitates for just a moment before asking, “Hey, Oikawa-san is that jacket from Espionage’s 2014 winter collection?”

Oikawa’s eyes widen in shock. She was familiar with Korean fashion? But this brand in particular was fairly popular in America and many people didn't know it was actually Korean. “It is,” he said with a smile, “I think it suits me well, don't you agree?” He says with a wink.

Lorraine was not swayed by his actions, which surprised Oikawa. Usually a line like that was all it took to make girls swoon. “It does look nice on you,” she says, but her tone is flat.

Oikawa was about to go full charmer but Iwa-chan had noticed what he was about to do and grabs his arm. Oikawa squeaked at his friend’s aggressive action.

“Come on Oikawa, we’re parked over there. We'll see you girls at the restaurant.” Iwaizumi says. Oikawa puffs out his cheeks and frowns at Iwa-chan, but his friend ignores him.

The girls waved the temporary goodbye and headed off to their own car.

“Can you not flirt with every single girl you meet?” Iwa-chan said, frustration leaking into his tone.

“Iwa-chan, don't worry I won't flirt with your Serina-chan. I would never do that to you.” Oikawa said with this look:

Iwaizumi replied with this look that perfectly displayed how he felt:

 

[]

 

After placing their orders, the five sat in silence for a moment since no one knew quite how to start the conversation. Iwaizumi sat at one corner of the six seat table, and Oikawa was next to him. On the other side of the table sat Serina across from Iwaizumi, Christine across from Oikawa and Lorraine on the end seat across from the empty seat.

“So what did you guys think of the movie?” Christine says to break the silence.  
  
“For a relatively low budget Godzilla movie, I thought it was good,” Iwaizumi comments.

“Yeah I agree, honestly I was expecting it to be worse than that. Have you seen the 1998 American Godzilla reboot? That was horrible,” Serina pitches in.

“Yeah that wasn't even Godzilla in that movie! It was just some dinosaur that they thought would cut it,” Iwaizumi responds, disappointment covering his face.

“Aaaaand there those two go,” Christine says, but only to Oikawa and Lorraine. “Lorraine and I don't know enough about the Godzilla movies to contribute, I'm guessing you’re in the same boat Oikawa-san?”

“Yeah, the only reason I came was because Iwa-chan said that the movie involved outer space and aliens, so I thought it would be interesting. Who knew I would come across three adorable girls as well?” Oikawa says with a smile that didn’t phase Christine’s loyal heart, but she saw Lorraine lean in towards Oikawa, clearly enjoying his flirtatious nature and attractive face. She was going to give her grief for that later since Oikawa wasn’t Korean (as far as Christine knew at least).

Christine decided at that moment that in order to be the best wing woman for Serina as possible, she was going to have to keep the conversation up between Lorraine, Oikawa and herself. This way, those two would be forced to have their own conversation. Although she was fairly certain Iwaizumi was interested, she wasn’t positive, and even if he was she couldn’t know for sure if he told Oikawa and if Oikawa was backing his best friend or would continue to try and be the center of attention even at his friend’s expense. She knew that Oikawa was low-key obsessed with space, something that she suspected, but with what he just said she now, had the last bit of proof she needed to verify that conclusion. He had been far too interested and engaged when their AP Chemistry professor had gone over briefly how fire burns in space (which was something he had brought up, now that she was thinking about it, when the class had some down time after everyone had finished the exam early that was supposed to take the entire 2 periods).

“So Oikawa, you seem to like space-related things, want to hear some insider knowledge from a girl who’s worked for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration?” Now she had his attention, evident from his switch from his flirtatious face to one of pure excitement, although it was gone in a flash as if he couldn’t let himself be genuine around people he wasn’t close with. Interesting.

But he was still hooked, “Wait you’ve interned at NASA? Beautiful and intelligent!” Christine is actually tempted to roll her eyes at that comment, but refrains. “Yeah I did last summer, I worked under the Asteroid Redirect Mission in Quality Engineering and Assurance, have you heard of that mission?”

“Of course!” He says with excitement, and as if everyone who was anyone would know about that mission. “The one that is being used as a test for the xenon fueled ion propulsion thrusters?” Wow he really is obsessed if he knew the true purpose of that mission instead of the purpose NASA put on the mission’s public web page, which said something along the line of collecting samples from an asteroid and to test planetary defense technology.

“Yeah that one, it was a really neat experience.” Christine glances at Serina and Iwaizumi and finds that they were still engrossed in their own conversation, both of them leaning in and talking excitedly. Good, things were going according to plan and as long as she could continue to keep Oikawa’s attention, then those two should be able to keep the conversation flowing and get to know each other more.

“But you know what my one true goal was while I worked at NASA? To find their hidden evidence that aliens are real!” Christine says, reducing her voice to a whisper as she spoke the last statement as if she truly had such an absurd goal and as if she had actually obtained some top secret government information.

She had never seen Oikawa’s or Lorraine’s eyes go as wide as they did in that moment, and Christine had to forcibly prevent her face from breaking into a smile at the two’s hilarious intrigue. She hadn’t talked much about the internship even with her best friends, it was just something she had done and that was that, so she wasn’t surprised when she realized she never told Lorraine about how she actually did try and figure out if NASA had any alien evidence that she, a lowly intern, could get her hands on (or at least see from a far). But, unfortunately, Christine was starting to deviate from her objective, because her statement had pulled in both Serina and Iwaizumi attentions’ as well. Oops.

“Wait, Christine you never told us about this!! Did you seriously try and figure out if they had some secret info on aliens?” Lorraine asks.

“But of course, what’s the point of working as a NASA intern if I don’t take the chance to try and find the government’s secret information!” She replies with a proud smile. “And you’ll never believe what I found! After spending a month trying to convince my boss to give me something to work with, he finally slipped and told me where I needed to look. Building 100, that’s where the military segment is located at NASA Glenn, and that’s where they keep all the highly classified secrets.”

They were all listening intently to Christine now, Oikawa leaning in the furthest with eyes wide open in intrigue. Okay so maybe he wasn’t so bad Christine considered. He definitely was not her type, but he seemed like he could be a cool friend, and they might be around each other quite a bit if things worked out between Serina and Iwaizumi.

The conversation pauses for a moment when the waiter arrives with their milkshakes. Everyone had ordered one, and the group of teens took a second to put their straws in so they could begin enjoying their shakes while Christine finished her story.

After taking a few sips, Christine continues. “I had to stay super late at work and wait for most of the other employees to go home. I made up some lame excuse to my boss saying a presentation I was giving the next day needed some last minute touch-ups. I was able to sneak up real close to building 100 and snap this photo.”

Christine carefully takes out her phone, as if it was delicate and sensitive evidence. She pulls up the photo she had secretly taken while at NASA and shows it to the group, backing up her seat so that they could all view the screen at once, and then moves her phone closer to each person at the table one at a time so they could all get a closer look, Oikawa grabbing at it when she showed it to him but Christine kept her grip firm since she didn’t want the device that could ruin her in his hands. The picture was of a room, and clearly was taken outside the window of that room. Inside the room in the picture were various objects all stored on a shelf behind a table with equipment on it, and some of the objects on the shelf included jars that looked like they could be holding ‘specimen’. Christine had circled one jar in particular in red since it was the most suspicious looking.

“That’s the most blurry photo I’ve ever seen and doesn't prove any-“

“SHUSH IWA-CHAN! I need to be able to concentrate!” Oikawa says as he pulls the phone a bit closer to his face, Christine still gripping to it tightly. Christine almost burst out laughing at Oikawa’s words, but was able to contain herself. “Oikawa-san, don’t you see its eye?” She said, might as well have a little fun ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“Yeah the dark black spot, I thought that was an eye! You can also see a limb right there.” He points to a small darker line that could literally be anything.

Christine pulls back her phone much to Oikawa’s very evident dismay, his face contorting into the biggest pout she’s seen in a while, since she’s turned 13 to be exact, and stopped hanging out with younger kids. “Sorry, but this kind of photo can’t be out in public for too long. If the government finds out I have this pic I would be so screwed. But I’ll send it to you if you want it.”

“Absolutely, evidence that the government is hiding the truth and the phone number of a cute girl; I would never turn down such an offer.” Looks like Oikawa Around Girls™ was back. She passes her phone to him so that he could enter his number into her contacts. Things were getting back on track for Christine, she needed his number for her ulterior motive (aka hook up Serina with Iwaizumi).

Christine took another sip of her milkshake and is very happy that she got the black raspberry chocolate chip shake instead of her usual M&M shake since the shake is really good. She glances around the table to see what the others ordered but she couldn’t identify Iwaizumi’s. “Hey Iwaizumi-kun, what flavor shake did you order?”

“Oh I got the salted caramel. It's pretty good, want to try it?”

“No I’m good, but Serina weren’t you thinking about getting that one? You should try it so you can know if you should get it in the future.” Christine suggests.

“Yeah if you don’t mind, I would like to try it. But there aren’t any extra straws…” Serina says, glancing accusingly at Christine who holds up her hands up as an act of saying ‘don't look at me’ but the small smile on her face gives her away.

“You can just take a sip from mine, I don’t mind.” Iwaizumi says.

“Um,” Serina looks around the table but strangely enough the extra spoon she swear was sitting in the middle of the table a second ago was now also missing. Christine was probably to blame (she was definitely to blame), but Serina didn’t want to be rude, so she decided she would just take a sip from his straw. It’s not like it was a big deal.

(Or at least to Serina it wasn’t).

Iwaizumi hands his drink to her and she takes a sip from the straw, and found that the flavor was really good as suspected. Christine swore she saw a slight blush cross Iwaizumi’s face when Serina took the sip, and she had to stop herself from smiling evilly.

“This flavor is really good! The salt really balances well with the sweet.” Serina says as she hands the shake back to Iwaizumi.  
  
“I think so too, but I don’t think I’ll be able to finish it, so you can have as much as you want Serina.” Iwaizumi offers, taking the shake back from her.

“Thanks but my own shake is more than enough, but thanks for letting me try yours.” Serina says with a genuine smile. Iwaizumi really was a nice guy, and Serina hoped they could become closer friends.

Shortly thereafter, everyone’s food came and the group continued to chat as they dug in.

 

[]

 

Oikawa and Iwaizumi left Steak’n’Shake after waving goodbye to the girls and got into Iwa-chan’s old, slightly beat up Dodge Charger. Oikawa’s best friend had a stupid smile on his face, clearly happy at the impromptu “date” he got to have with Serina-chan.

“She seems really into you,” Oikawa comments after they had begun driving back home. He checked his phone and noticed he had received a text from Christine containing both the pic and a statement that left a smirk on his face, although he quickly hid the device in his pocket so that Iwaizumi didn’t see it when he glanced at him.

“I don’t know, I don’t think she wants to be anything more than friends.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure just yet Iwa-chan.” Oikawa said with a knowing smile. Doubt was written all over Iwaizumi’s face, but also just the slightest hint of hope. Oikawa always had trouble when it came to his own relationships, but he was surprisingly good at setting up his friends. In fact, he was to thank for Matsukawa and Hanamaki getting together (A/N: would this really be a haikyuu fanfic if there wasn’t at least one gay ship??? I’m honestly sorry that there aren’t more ._. haha).

“Don’t give up Iwa-chan! Make sure you keep texting her, especially good morning and good night texts, ladies love that kind of stuff.”

“I don’t want to sound cliché, but she's not like other girls Oikawa. She doesn't seem like the type who’s into gestures like that. And thanks for that shitty no-brainer advice.”

“I give only my top tier advice to you, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says with a wink. Iwaizumi sighs.

Iwaizumi proceeds to pay more attention to the road since they had just gotten on the highway. Oikawa takes this chance to respond to Christine’s text.

{Christine} So I’m trying to be a good wing women here and nudge Serina in Iwaizumi-kun’s direction. He’s single right? Also are you gonna back me up with this?  
  
{Oikawa} Christine-chan, I’m so glad we are on the same page! I completely support those two getting together, let’s do our best (/^▽^)/  
  
{Oikawa} It’s about time Iwa-chan found a nice girl, he’s been single for waaaay to long  
  
{Christine} Serina needs a significant other just as badly. Plus their shared Godzilla and superhero love is just too perfect, how could I not ship it?  
  
{Oikawa} IwaRine? SerIzume? SerJime?  
  
{Christine} SerJime is definitely the best imo, we’re gonna have to get them on a first name basis lol  
  
{Oikawa} SerJime it is. Christine-chan, it will be a pleasure working with you (★^▽^★)

 

[]

 

Oikawa opened up his laptop after putting the last of his homework away. He decided to call it a night with the studying for his AP chem exam that he had tomorrow afternoon, and spend the rest of his evening talking to her. It had become a weekly routine to talk to her on Sunday evenings, it was their thing. They would chat occasionally during the week, and honestly Oikawa wished they talked more but both of them were busy people.

[girlsgeneration-spacestation] hello my dear nameless-chan, have you watched the new Big Bang music videos that came out this week? I’m so glad the month wait is finally over ヘ(◕。◕ヘ) (A/N: according to the emojis page I got that emoji from, that emoji is “ballin”).

Oikawa still didn’t know her real name, just that she is female and lives in the area. They’ve been Tumblr mutuals for years, both of them running k-pop themed blogs (although he later found out that the blog he knew was one of her side blogs, and has yet to get his hands on her main blog). They tagged each other in posts and reblogged from each other, but never actually talked at first. However, when Tumblr got the new messenger feature, Oikawa found that directly sending her posts of her favorite artists and groups would be easier than tagging her, and soon he found himself also talking to her using the feature.

From the start she barely talked about her irl life with him no matter how much he tried to pry. He had only learned of her location since for some reason she was willing to share this tidbit when he asked her very late one night, and he had honestly assumed she would respond by saying she was from somewhere across the country, or maybe even across the world. But instead she said Seven Hills, Ohio, which was the city directly next to Parma, where Oikawa lived. Oikawa was shocked by their close proximity, and excitedly tried to get her to spill more information about herself so that they could potentially meet up and talk about their shared interest. But she was far too fearful of meeting up with someone she had met on the internet, which was understandable but frustrating.

[T.O.P.canbigbangme] yeah I liked them both, especially Bang bang bang! I still can’t believe I’m gonna get to see them live next month!  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] I actually got a ticket to go see them too! But none of my friends want to go with me since they all said it’s too expensive, especially since none of them even like kpop ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´Д｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] we could always go together, nameless-chan :3c  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] i swear im not some creep

[T.O.P.canbigbangme] (._.) Sorry but I think itd be kinda weird since we’ve never met.   
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] we can change that!

[girlsgeneration-spacestation] we might even go to the same school, I know you’re in high school but what grade are you in? We might even be in the same grade! And same high school!

[T.O.P.canbigbangme] Maybe

[girlsgeneration-spacestation] Nameless-chaaaaaaaaaan  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] …you tell first  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] If I say, will you also?  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] come on we’ve been talking for months, and have been mutuals for years  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] …maybe  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] ಠ_ಠ  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] Fine haha  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] im a senior in hs  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] Me too  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] OMG! Its fate!!!  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] lmao  


Oikawa knew it! He just knew she had to be in the same grade as him. But he was so glad that he finally could confirm this assumption.

He hadn’t even told Iwaizumi, but he actually wasn’t interested even in Kiyoko-san. Just a couple of months after they had started talking, he had fallen in love with this nameless girl he talked to online. He loved that they shared the same love for kpop, a passion that none of his irl friends shared with him. And talking to her every week about their lives had become something he really looked forward to.

He was determined to find her in real life. Oikawa was sure that he would know it if he ever came across her, that they would meet and something would just click in his mind and he’d know it was her.

(Little did he know he had already met her earlier that day).

The two then proceeded to talk a little bit about their week and about how annoying classes were, although never mentioning specific class names since Oikawa didn’t want to pressure his nameless love too much and scare her away. Getting information out of her slowly like this was fine with him, although he was running out of time since they would be graduating in just a couple of months.

[girlsgeneration-spacestation] nameless-chan  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] Can you pls stop using that name for me it’s so embarrassing  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] i’ll stop calling you that when u tell me ur real name  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] ⚆⚆ (A/N: This is the best I could do for the eyes emoji, pls bear with me).  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] -.-  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] …  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] Why do you want to know my name so bad  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] Because then I can find you and we can talk about kpop and hang out  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] ⚆⚆  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] i swear im a cool guy irl  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] haha yeah sure  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] no for real! Plus im not some loner or anything. im on a sports team and i dont want to brag, but im super popular with the ladies ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] okay then why do you want to hang out with me, just hang out with one of them haha  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] but they arent u :/  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] haha sorry but I actually have to go now  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] what do u need to do on a Sunday evening  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] lol nothing just catch up on sleep before school tmrw  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] u and me both know thats a lie  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] We also both know that you never get enough sleep. You reblog stuff at like 3am on school nights ⚆⚆  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] sleep is for the weak  
  
[T.O.P.canbigbangme] Goodnight girlsgeneration-spacestation  
  
[girlsgeneration-spacestation] okaaaaay. gn nameless-chan

Oikawa sighs. He wants to just send a pic of himself and his name and tell her everything about himself but he knows that it isn't fair to push that information on her if she didn’t want to do so in return. Although he was slightly happy that they kept up their anonymity, since Oikawa felt that she might be disappointed when she met him and found how obsessed with volleyball he was, just like his previous girlfriend… No he shouldn’t be thinking like this.

Oikawa closes his laptop and crawls into bed, deciding that nameless-chan was right and that he should get a bit of extra sleep before the start of what inevitably would be a very busy school week.

 

[]

 

Lorraine wasn’t sure why she still was so hesitant to reveal information about herself to girlsgeneration-spacestation. They had been mutuals for such a long time and she honestly enjoyed talking with him, but she didn’t like talking about kpop at school and feared he might be someone like Cathy Orbanic, who had zero filter at school and would talk out loud about anime in front of normal people. It was just too risky.

She felt a little bad about lying to him, but there was no way in hell that she was going to tell him about what she was actually going to go do tonight. She hadn't even told her best friends about these meetings. She knew that they probably wouldn't judge her too much (at least not out loud, they'd for sure judge her on the inside), and she did have a lot of blackmail on both of them, but she still couldn't bring herself to try and explain this to them. They just wouldn't understand.

Lorraine packed up her stuff, grabbing the items she had agreed to bring this week. Her group had recently moved these meetings to Sunday night, which she had mixed feelings about. She was always available on Sunday nights, but this was the day of the week she always spent some time talking to her Tumblr mutual. She figured she could handle both, and honestly Sunday was a great day to meet with the group since the urge to die was extra strong on Sunday evenings with Monday right around the corner.

Lorraine changed into her black skinny jeans, and threw on her black jacket. This would have to do for today.

She snuck out of the house (A/N: haha yeah I know this is unrealistic but oh well, lorraine pretend your parents aren't super strict lolol) and drove to the designated meeting place; Denny’s.

Originally they met at McDonalds, but one of their members had an ‘incident’ that involved a chocolate milkshake and…the Hershey squirts…and everyone agreed to change locations so that no one would have to be reminded of that.

The other two had texted her that they had already arrived and got a table. It was the other drivers turn to pick up the youngest member of the group, which Lorraine was thankful for since she was running a little late.

As she drove through the parking lot, Lorraine glanced at the restaurant and could see the others through the window, and saw that they had already put their hair pieces on. She didn't like to call them wigs since that made them sound fake, and the hair pieces were doing the opposite, they were allowing the three to be their true selves. However, she didn't need the hair piece and simply fixed her bangs using the mirror in her car so that they covered her right eye, since her hair was already pretty much black.

Lorraine entered the restaurant and sat down in the booth across from the boy in the group and next to the girl. The boy had on a black t-shirt with a forest scenery on it, a pair of jeans, and a hair piece that was made up of black straight hair with bangs styled in a slightly Justin Bieber-ish way. The girl was wearing a black long sleeve shirt with the words ‘Normal people scare me’, a pair of black skinny jeans that Lorraine was pretty sure she stole from her older sister, a black beanie to help hide her long brown very curly hair, and a black long straight hair hair piece complete with bangs that covered her left eye.

“Grades are coming out soon which really makes me want to kill myself.” Emo-kun says as soon as Lorraine takes a seat. “Like, what's even the point? I'm just gonna get okay grades, then an okay job and then die.”

“Well, life sucks and then you die.” Emo-chan says with a dejected sigh. She had a dead look in her eyes like she usually did during their meetings.

Lorraine was the oldest of the group who called themselves Pizza Rolls at Midnight. The group at one point was much larger, having almost 20 members. But once she graduated middle school most of the others stopped attending, clearly not true emos like herself and the other two remaining members.

Lorraine took on the title of Emo-senpai since she was the only high school senior in the group, with Emo-chan being a high school sophomore and Emo-kun an 8th grader. She also responded to her emo name, X0xb1u3sw0rdsd@nzex0X, but only when said in its entirety since any shortening of the name was unacceptable.

“I brought the black nail polish, mirrors and eye liner.” Emo-senpai says.

“Finally my outside appearance will match how I feel on the inside; dark, sad and lonely,” Emo-chan comments.

Emo-senpai pulled out the eyeliner first since it would be easier to apply when their nails weren't wet. She handed a stick to everyone and some small mirrors she found around the house, and they all got to work applying their black eyeliner. The table fell silent for a moment as they all concentrated on getting the lines straight and close to the eye, but since they had been doing this for years they were able to apply it quickly and accurately.

Emo-senpai had just finished applying her’s when the waitress came up to the table to take their orders. Pizza Rolls at Midnight met once every two weeks, and thus the waitress was familiar with them and considered them regulars. That didn't stop her from giving them a look every time they came in. Emo-senpai couldn't bring herself to care about the waitress’s judgmental look, they were all going to die anyways so her opinion didn’t matter.

Everyone places their orders, and once the waitress leaves emo-senpai pulls out her phone and the black nail polish. She turns on some relatable music to help ease their tortured minds: Linkin Park.

“I found this interesting question on Tumblr that I wanted to hear your guys’ answers to,” Emo-chan says as she paints her right index finger nail with the black nail polish. “’If you were dying, what would your last words be?’”

“Finally,” Emo-kun immediately answers. Emo-senpai nods her head in agreement, that sounds about right. But she thinks for a second and decides she would probably say, “Either ‘shit,’ to be honest, or ‘@god, thanks’.”

“I think my last words are going to be ‘I'm not even surprised natural selection got me’ when I'm killed like in the next couple of months from stepping on a rock funny,” Emo-chan says.

“So anything interesting happen in the last couple of weeks to you guys?” Emo-senpai asks.

“Yeah I actually almost killed myself because my damn English teacher keeps assigning us these essays and expects us to complete them in like a week,” Emo-kun explains, his face scrunched in anger and his eyes filled with torment. “Like, she expects us to write a fucking three paragraph essay in a just a week. This is why I hate school so much.”

“Honey, if that’s the worst of your problems, you got a big storm coming.” Emo-chan informs him. “It only gets worse.”

“Yeah that's why I'm thinking of just ending my life now, everything just gets worse forever.” Emo-kun says, his voice getting louder at the end of the statement, causing a few people at other tables to turn and look at him.

“Hey you aren't allowed to escape the suffering that is life,” Emo-chan says with a frown. “Our group needs at least three people to be considered an actual group. Besides, you should at least wait until you graduate before you kill yourself, after graduation that's when I hear life really goes downhill.”

Emo-senpai thinks about Emo-chan’s words and how her graduation is quickly approaching. If nothing else, she hoped she could at least find a cute date to prom, preferably a hot Korean boy. That would make the remainder of her high school career a little less torturous.

 

[]

 

Placing the last of her study materials on the table, Christine decides she will take a little pre-studying break. Of course such a break was 0% effective and usually resulted in Christine wasting a good half hour, but she needed some shoujo manga in her life after watching Serina and Iwaizumi flirt earlier that afternoon.

It’s not like she was jealous, no, she genuinely didn’t feel anything for Iwaizumi, plus that was against girl code. It was just that Christine desperately wanted some romance in her own life, and if the only way she could get that was through shoujo manga, then so be it. Plus this would give her ideas on how to get Serina and Iwaizumi together.

“Hey, what manga are you reading?” Asks a familiar voice from behind Christine.

Whole body tensing, Christine quickly hits the home button on her iphone to get the manga off her screen, but clearly it was already too late. She turns around and sees none other than Adam Sychla, one of her next door neighbors who was also in her grade, standing behind her, a few books in his arms.

“Oh, hey Adam, I didn’t know you studied at this library.” Change the subject, change the subject, change the subject.

“Yeah, I come here sometimes, they have a good supply of physics journals here that I like to read in my free time.” This nerd haha, but that’s what Christine likes about him, and she considers them friends on a level above that which she was “friends” with most people at school. “But anyways, what manga were you reading?” Just kidding, she hates him.

“Oh um…” Seeing no obvious escape from this conversation, Christine quickly looks around and finds that there is no one she knows in the immediately vicinity, and decides that it’s safe to just tell him. At least he knew what manga was, Christine hadn’t known that Adam was a weeb. “I was reading Dengeki Daisy, it’s a romance thriller manga.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it, but I don’t read much manga.” Adam says, scrunching up his eyebrows in thought. “Mind if I sit here for a moment? I won’t bother you too long since it looks like you’ve got a lot to do,” gesturing at the books in front of her.

“Uh, sure, knock yourself out.” Christine responds, not enthralled by this unexpected social interaction. This is what she gets for going out in public to do her studying, but it couldn’t be avoided since her younger sister was being annoying af back at home and singing out loud as she walked around the house and Christine would literally end her life if she didn’t get some peace and quiet so that she could do her studying. Her mom would not be happy if she did that, and Christine was too young to go to jail, so instead she decided to change locations and go to the library to do some studying.

“We don’t talk much even though we’re neighbors,” Adam comments, and Christine isn’t exactly sure how to respond to that. She half-expects him to add ‘we should change that’ to the end of his statement, but he leaves the statement at that.

“Yeah, I guess we are both just busy with all our AP classes, especially with the AP exams coming up in just a couple of months,” Please just leave Adam. It’s not that she didn’t like him, but when it’s study time, Christine does not like being interrupted.

“How’s AP Chem going?” He asks with a tilt of the head. “Oh, it’s not too bad. Donna knows what’s up and is a good teacher, and there are a lot of fun people in that class. How’s Biotech?”

“Good, I think I’m going to take the AP Bio test using what I’ve learned and by doing some of my own studying. I think I can pass it.”

“That’s cool! That AP credit should help you out in college a bit, right? Aren’t you going for like biochemistry?”

“Physics and molecular biology to be exact,” he says with a laugh. Christine also wants to laugh at how crazy this child is for double majoring, especially when the two majors were already individually almost impossible, but she keeps her mouth shut tight and simply smiles instead.

“You go Adam, that’s not gonna be easy but I’m sure you’ll be able to pull it off,” Christine compliments him easily. Gotta keep up that Fake Nice Christine™. He smiles in return, and some sort of emotion flashes across his eyes that Christine can’t identify.

“What about you Christine, still thinking about doing something in engineering?” Adam inquires, leaning in a bit toward Christine.

“Yep, right now I’m leaning toward chemical engineering since AP chem has made me fall in love with chemistry, but I like the problem solving aspect of engineering,” Christine explains as she turns her head to the side a bit, a genuine smile on her face as she thinks about her dream.

All of a sudden, Christine feels a shiver runs down her spine and she glances around the library. It almost feels as if a deadly aura had just formed from somewhere in the library. Looking back over at Adam, she sees his eyes widen in fear for just a moment, and she tries to follow his line of sight to see what freaked him out and swears she sees black spiky hair moving behind a book, but she’s probably just seeing things.  
  
Turning her head back toward Adam and ignoring whatever that was about, Christine says, “Okay well I do have an exam tomorrow, so I gotta get back to studying. And it looks like you have a little reading to do yourself,” with a small laugh. Adam nods and stands up, gathering up the books he placed on the table. “Um, yeah, I better go. See you later Christine!”

“See ya!” Christine says, smiling until he leaves her line of sight, at which point her expressions changes into one of slight annoyance at the fact that her pre-studying break was wasted on social interaction and not manga. Sighing, she pulls her binder full of notes that’s already open to the correct page closer to her and begins reading the material.

 

[]

 

Kuroo didn’t usually study at the library, in fact he almost never did, but for some reason he was having trouble focusing at home and decided a change of scenery might help.

He did not expect to see Christine also at the library.

Seeing her reminded him that they hadn’t studied together in quite a long time. They used to all the time, but for whatever reason had grown distant ever since last year. Maybe he’d invite her over to come help him teach Kenma physics sometime, his poor best friend was really struggling and Kuroo wasn’t amazing at that subject himself, but he knew that Christine had a strange love for both the class and the teacher (A/N: Hell yeah Mr. Verlie you a G).

For now though, he was not going to interrupt her he decides as he watches her pull out an excess of materials for what he guessed was to study for their AP Chemistry exam. Where did she even get all those books? He just had a spiral and his textbook, but it looked like she had a nearly full 2-inch binder, the class textbook, two other books (probably AP prep books), and another older looking binder (probably a senpai’s who already took the class that she was borrowing). Kuroo shook his head at the sight, he had to admit that Christine did have a lot of resources and it was one of the reasons she was at the top of the class.

Instead of sitting in the ‘Teen’ section of the library, which is where Christine is at, Kuroo takes a turn and looks for a spot in an adjacent section. He can’t stand the Teen area anyway, the whole thing is surrounded by glass and feels so exposing to him, but the library as a whole was pretty open with few spots offering privacy, and on this Sunday afternoon all of these spots have already been taken. Kuroo chooses a spot where he can see Christine, but she’s sitting at an angle that mostly faces away from him.

He has all his papers out and is ready to begin, but something out of the corner of his eye catches his attention. Someone had approached Christine from behind, and even from this distance he can see her physically tense when that person speaks.

Kuroo debates getting up and going over to see what that person had said to Christine that would cause her to have such a response, but then he sees Christine relax, although she still seems a bit on edge and annoyed, but has a fake smile on top to cover this up. They had been neighbors and friends for years, and he could see through most of her fake public personality.

All of a sudden, Christine starts turning her head and looking around, and Kuroo finds himself holding up his textbook to cover his face, not even sure why he cares if he gets caught by her searching eyes. He lowers his book a moment later and finds Christine engaged in her conversation with…he thinks the kids name is Adam? Pretty sure he had seen him around, he might even have a class with him. He had also seen him in the neighborhood quite a few times since he lived two houses away from him, on the other side of Christine’s house. He had only just moved into that house about a year or two ago though, and Kuroo didn’t feel the need to go become friends with him just because of their close living vicinities.

Kuroo continues to watch the two talk, unable to hear anything they say thanks to the glass barrier. Thinking he’s already wasted enough time, he’s about to try and study again when he sees Adam smile at Christine in a way that pisses him off for some reason. He then watches as Adam leans in just a bit towards Christine and has to physically stop himself from getting up and interrupting…whatever was going on over there.

No, it was none of his business. Why did he care so much anyways? Christine can talk to whoever she wants, and it was no secret that she was fairly popular at school, using her intelligence and kindness to win over her classmates. Of course there are going to be guys who are interested in being more than her friend… whatever.

Kuroo goes back to observing the two, eyes squinting as he tries to make out Christine’s expression. However, her head is still mostly turned away from him so he can’t tell even with his good vision. That is, until she turns her head just the slightest bit in his direction and he finds that she has a genuine smile on her face.

Anger covers Kuroo’s face, eyes piercing into Christine’s back and then shifting to Adam. He does his best to convey a deadly threat through just his eyes and smirks when he sees Adam’s eyes widen in fear. He changed his mind, Christine doesn’t need any boys distracting her with AP exams coming up and with all the college prep she was probably doing. Nope, no room for boys in her life.

Christine turns her head to see what Adam is looking at, and Kuroo once again hides his face behind his textbook. What the hell is he doing? He sighs, sets down his book, and pulls up his spiral closer to him so he can actually do some studying. He was going to fail the AP chem exam tomorrow at this rate.

A moment later, he finds himself looking back over toward Christine and is happy to find that she is now alone and diligently studying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp that’s a wrap for Chapter 2. Couple notes:  
> I would like to thank both Lorraine and Serina, aka emoedgelord and darkangel1236, who both wrote side fics to this that can be found here and here. Their side fics inspired me to continue writing this trash :’) I can’t thank them enough tbh.
> 
> Holly: Wow so you thank Serina but not me. Okay. *insert gif of Judge Judy rolling her eyes*
> 
> Me: Sorry my B Holly, you know you’re the true inspiration for this second chapter ;)
> 
> Spongebob: Hey who the *dolphin noises* do you think you’re winking at *insert eyes emoji* *insert gun emoji*
> 
> Me: Omg! My bad Spongebob! Don’t worry, I know your girl is off limits
> 
> Spongebob: You got that right ya dumb ass hoe. Better stay in your lane
> 
> Me: So what did you guys think of this chapter? Pretty good stuff amiright?
> 
> Holly: More serjime! More serjime!
> 
> Spongebob: My girl knows what’s up, that ship is lit. I’m also pumped to see where this whole online romance thing with Oikawa goes. I cannot figure out who the mystery girl is, Christine you gotta give us some hints
> 
> Me: Sorry Spongebob, no can do. You’ll just have to wait and see ;)
> 
> Spongebob: Damn. You better get chapter 3 out soon
> 
> Me: haha….I’ll do my best………….(yikes)
> 
> Holly: *inserts completely not relevant gif*
> 
> Feel free to leave comments haha, hit me up with them critiques. Tell me what you think of the plot, of the roasting, tell me if you think ppl are out of character, I'll take anything haha. I’m also still taking requests lolol.


	3. SERJIME! SERJIME! SERJIME!!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's just another Monday of a school week for Serina. Except maybe a little better than a normal Monday since Iwaizumi is now in her medical class. 
> 
> But the appearance of a new character might traumatize Serina beyond repair ;3c

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow.... how come it's always like 6 months in-between me posting chapters for this fic??? This needs to stop. 
> 
> okay wow i went back and looked at my notes for chapter 2 and apparently i used [name] for tumblr convos and {name} for texting convos? Yeah well im not gonna fix this chapter so just know that in this chapter [name] is texting lolol

Serina doesn’t like to identify with labels, finding them often to be unnecessary and misleading due to stereotypes that are associated with the words. However, there are a couple of labels she undoubtingly identifies with: introvert for one, superhero nerd is another, and most importantly, she identifies as a night person.

 

Which explains why she is yawning for the fifth time since she had arrived at school 10 minutes ago.

 

Luckily, today she finds a seat in the cafeteria. Often she arrives just before the first bell rang when there was only standing room left. She sits down in a seat beside Christine and across from Lorraine, Christine is talking excitedly about something Pokémon related. _No one should have that much energy this early in the morning,_ Serina thinks to herself.

 

Serina regrets that she didn’t grab a Starbucks coffee from her fridge this morning as she leans heavily on the palm of her hand, eyelids drooping. She starts having a dream where she sees a hooded figure and suddenly a gun, they shoot her and she gives a dramatic speech about her phone to Iwaizumi who is there for some reason. As she feels the life fade from her, the hooded figure reveals himself to be Sasuke and suddenly Lorraine is pulling out a sword, running at Sasuke and about to strike when-

 

The bell rings and Serina jolts awake from her nap. She quickly rises from her seat so she can head to class, but as she tries to move away from the table her leg gets caught on someone’s book bag, and she starts to trip and oh god she’s not going to be able to catch herself in time-

 

When suddenly a strong pair of hands grab her flailing arms, stopping her mid fall.

 

Serina looks up to see who managed to stop her from tripping and comes face to face with Iwaizumi. For a moment she’s lost in Iwaizumi’s incredibly alluring marijuana green eyes.

 

Okay, she really needs to stop staying up until 1am on tumblr on school nights. Clearly the 420 memes were invading her mind.

 

Iwaizumi helps Serina to her feet, and seems to have a dusting of pink on his cheeks, but Serina thinks she might just be imagining it.

 

“Thanks Iwaizumi, that was really lucky that you were able to catch me,” Serina says with a smile.

 

“Yeah, no problem, glad I could help.” Serina swears she saw pastel shoujo bubbles filling the air when Iwaizumi smiles at her, and maybe a few sparkles surrounding him, but she also might be still hallucinating a bit from her sleepiness. She tries to swat at a few of the shoujo bubbles and after seeing the confused look on Iwaizumi’s face, she decides that she must be imagining them.

 

“Well, I guess I’ll see you in class,” Iwaizumi says. He makes his way through the crowd, presumably towards class, not needing to stop at his locker since he only spent the morning at Nekoma.

 

_Oh yeah, we have Medical together starting today_ , Serina remembers. She forgot that for the fourth quarter of the school year, the Allied Health and Pharmacy students had class together to prepare for the HOSA conference and their final exams, Nursing and Physical Therapy also doing the same.

 

After getting to know Iwaizumi over the past weekend, Serina’s glad that she’ll get to see him every day in Medical for the first 3 periods. Having another friend in Medical will definitely make that class more enjoyable. 

 

[]

 

“Hey, Serina,” Iwaizumi asks from behind her. Serina quickly clicks the home button on her phone and hopes and prays to god that Iwaizumi didn’t see the picture of her Makoto statue with the little cat figures that she was admiring on her screen.

 

What? She needed to remind herself that there were things worth living for. She needed a reason to live when she was seriously debating stabbing herself with her mechanical pencil after her teacher had handed out a 20-page packet that the class was to work on for the next couple of days.

 

“What’s up?” Serina responds, turning partially around in her seat so that she’s facing Iwaizumi.

 

“Want to be partners for the mock emergency assessment we have to do during third period? Since the teacher said we could pick a partner if we wanted and since you’re the only one I know who’s in Allied Health, I wanted to ask. I don’t know too many people who go to Nekoma besides some of the guys on Nekoma’s volleyball team,” Iwaizumi admits somewhat sheepishly.

 

Serina nods, glad that she won’t have to work with someone randomly chosen. From beside her, she can feel Holly’s suspicious gaze but does her best to ignore it. “Sure, that sounds good.”

 

“Great.” Iwaizumi returns to his own table, across the room.

 

Serina turns back towards the packet, suddenly determined to finish the whole thing, but Holly doesn’t waste even a second after witnessing the interaction.

 

“Serina, you have to tell me when you started getting close with that guy. He’s hot! Who is he?”

 

“Holly I literally just happened to run into him and talk to him a few times over the weekend, so I barely know him. But I mean, yeah he’s attractive,” Serina says with a shrug, as if she’s just stating a simple truth. “His names Iwaizumi Hajime, and he goes to Seijoh,” she explains.

 

“Oh? I ship it,” Holly says with a smirk, laughing.

 

“Why did Christine and I think it was a good idea to teach you that word,” Serina sighs. “I blame Christine. She just can’t keep her weeb mouth shut.”

 

“What was that word you just said? The one with the ‘W’?”

 

“Nothing!” Serina quickly says. Oops, Holly almost heard the “W” word. Christine and she were doing everything in their power to try and keep that word from joining Holly’s vocabulary. It was bad enough that she kept saying-

 

“Does it have to do with one of your hentanais?”

 

“Holly, please do not say that word out loud ever again,” Serina begs.

 

Holly starts chanting ‘hentanai’ but after her fourth chant the teacher asks at them to quiet down.

 

[]

 

Third period rolls around and Mrs. Morgen, the teacher, begins pulling out the materials for the mock emergency assessment. The procedure involves quickly and accurately identifying the vitals on a patient who has collapsed, and is a skill all Medical students are expected to know. Mrs. Morgen paired one Pharmacy student with one Allied Health student for all the students who didn’t pick a partner ahead of time. The students in the Nursing section would be the pretend patients for the assignment.

 

Iwaizumi is sitting beside Serina at her table in Holly’s seat since she had moved to go sit beside her own partner. The teacher said they would be up sixth. Serina watches as the first two students leave the class and go out into the hallway, Mrs. Morgen following close behind and sharply saying that everyone is to work on their packets while she was away.

 

Serina had every intent to do as told, wanting to get the packet done as soon as possible so she would have time to work on some of her other homework, but then Iwaizumi mentions yesterday’s Godzilla movie and she finds that she would much much rather talk about anything Godzilla related than work on the packet at the moment.

 

Somehow the topic diverges to pets.

 

“This is Loki,” Serina says, showing an amused Iwaizumi a picture of her beloved cat on her phone, the dark brown and beige cat looking just to the side of the camera with a little golden bow wrapped around his neck. “He’s a fat Oriental Shorthair and I love him.”

 

“’Loki’ is a good name for a cat,” Iwaizumi comments. “He’s adorable.”

 

“Do you have any pets Iwaizumi?” Serina asks.

 

“Yeah I actually have two pets. Please don’t think I’m weird just because they aren’t the most common of pets. I have a bearded dragon and a tarantula.”

 

“That’s cool, I also have a bearded dragon, her name is Lizzy. But wow a tarantula, that I don’t have but that’s cool too.”

 

Iwaizumi looks at Serina with surprise, which confuses Serina. What did he expect her to say when he told her about his pets?

 

“That is not the response I usually get when I tell girls about my pets, which is why I usually don’t tell them. Thanks for not freaking out,” Iwaizumi says with a lopsided smile.

 

Serina is thrown off by his thanks, is that really what other girls do when they hear he has uncommon pets?

 

“It’s so refreshing talking to someone like you, you really aren’t like other girls.”

 

Serina simply nods in response to that, unsure how to respond. “So what are your pets’ names?” She asks.

 

“Godzilla and Kumonga. My Godzilla obsession runs pretty deep, if you haven’t already noticed,” Iwaizumi says bashfully.

 

“Honestly, I don’t think I could have thought of better names myself,” Serina says with a laugh. “Those are really cool pets, I’m a little jealous.”

 

“If you want, you could come over and see them sometime?” Iwaizumi poses as a question, hesitance clear in his voice. “Maybe we could have a bearded dragon play date.”

 

Lizzy could use some interaction with her own species. “Yeah, that would be awesome,” Serina responds.

 

The two start working on their packet for a little while but soon enough they hear Mrs. Morgen calling out their names.

 

The two rise from their seats and walk out into the hallway, following behind the teacher. She leads them to the classroom where the assessment will take place. An ash-blond student with a beauty mark below his left eye who Serina isn’t familiar with is sitting in the room, and waves at Iwaizumi when he enters.

 

“Hey Iwaizumi-san! It’s nice to see you off the court.” Serina looks between the Nursing student and Iwaizumi, and sees Iwaizumi’s face light up in recognition.

 

“Oh, hi Sugawara-san,” Iwaizumi replies. Must be someone he knew from volleyball, Serina concludes.

 

Sugawara then turns his attention to Serina and introduces himself. “Sugawara Koishi, please just call me Suga. I’m actually a Karasuno student, but come to Nekoma for Nursing. I’m on the volleyball team at Karasuno which is how I know Iwaizumi.”

 

“I’m Serina, it’s nice to meet you Suga.” Suga smiles really brightly Serina notices, to the point of almost being angelic.

 

Suga glances between her and Iwaizumi, and then he asks, “So do you two know each other?”

 

Iwaizumi gets something stuck in his throat and starts coughing, Serina patting him gently on the back to try and help. When his coughs die down, she answers Suga’s question. “Um, yeah, we’re friends.”

 

“Oh?” Suga says with a smile that is no longer angelic, quite the opposite in fact.

 

Mrs. Morgen explains that Iwaizumi and Serina will get to work as a team to assess the patient for the test. They will need to check his vitals and record what they find.

 

Suga leaves the room and Serina and Iwaizumi are given a few moments to look through their supplies. Based on the colored postie note that is on Suga’s chest, they will have to perform some sort of emergency lifesaving procedure, the options being things like CPR, AED, or the Heimlich maneuver. They won’t know which until Suga comes back in the room and falls on the mat that is laid out for him.

 

Mrs. Morgen calls out for them to begin and Suga comes in through the door, a pink postie note stuck to his chest. Pink meant cardiac arrest, so the procedure would be CPR.

 

He walks with a wobble to the middle of the room where the mat is, and then dramatically falls down onto his side, clutching his chest, his eyes closing, and a bit of what Serina hopes is fake blood comes trickling from his mouth. _Where did he even get fake blood??_

 

Iwaizumi and Serina rush over to him, Serina reaching him first and falls to her knees to begin. She puts two fingers on his carotid artery and holds it for a few moments. Iwaizumi grabs the first aid kit that’s nearby.

 

After pretending to not find a pulse, Serina does what is required next for a patient that is undergoing cardiac arrest. She moves her face close to Suga, who Iwaizumi had gently rolled over onto his back. She puts her ear close to his lips, so that she can listen for his breathing.

 

Of course in a real life threatening situation, this wouldn’t be nearly as weird, but because Suga is perfectly fine Serina can’t help but get a little embarrassed and uncomfortable when she feels his warm breath on her ear. Serina pulls back from Suga a moment early, but doesn’t think she’ll get points docked, a blush from embarrassment on her face.

 

Iwaizumi’s eyes seem to widen when she blushes, then he moves his head down so that a shadow is cast over his eyes.

 

“Serina, I’ll take over from here,” Iwaizumi says with no room for debate. “Can you call the ambulance and prepare to take over for me after I begin CPR?”

 

“Uh, sure.”

 

Iwaizumi moves closer to Suga, who is obviously trying very hard not to smile right now (and failing). He puts his hands on Suga’s chest and starts doing mock compressions, probably a little more forcefully than necessary.

 

Serina busies herself by pretending to use her cell phone to call 911 so that they can get their fake patient to the fake hospital in case none of their immediate first aid measures work and he needs fake surgery.

 

After a minute of compressions, Suga doesn’t respond (the Nursing student was given the opportunity to decide if he would recover from CPR alone or not), so it’s time for Iwaizumi and Serina to move onto the next step: AED.

 

Serina already has the defibrillators ready, so Iwaizumi moves to the side and after saying ‘Clear!’ she presses them to Suga’s chest, and Suga pretends to flinch a bit. Serina has to admit, Suga is doing an excellent job at acting his part.

 

Suga’s eyes fly open, and he rises so that he’s sitting up, Serina moving back to give him some room.

 

“Thank you so much Serina-chan, you saved me!” Suga says.

 

“No problem,” Serina replies with a laugh. She doesn’t notice Iwaizumi staring daggers into Suga from behind her.

 

Suga smiles in a way that reminds Serina of one of those overly chocolaty deserts Christine likes to eat, way too much sweetness at once, to the point of it being sickening. But she figures he was just continuing to be a bit dramatic if his whole act was anything to go by.

 

Little does she know that Suga figured out Iwaizumi has a crush on her, and that he was just messing with Seijoh’s ace. Suga was not above using psychological torture to defeat his enemies, and with the Karasuno vs. Seijoh game coming up, he needed to use every tactic he could to get an advantage.

 

[]

 

“And then the bastard had the audacity to yell out ‘Serina-chan, you saved me’ as if his life was actually on the line.”

 

“Iwa-chan, aren’t you overreacting just a bit?” Oikawa says, his hand covering his mouth in an attempt to hold back his laughter so that he didn’t spit his lunch all over the table.

 

“I don’t know how he figured it out, but Suga definitely knew that I was into Serina. I didn’t think I did anything that was at all obvious, so I’m not sure how he figured it out.” Iwaizumi stabbed at an octopus shaped sausage in his lunch forcefully.

 

“I think Mr. Refreshing was just messing with you. People don’t believe me when I say it, but he’s actually a demon you know. Good to know you’ve finally seen the light, well I guess the darkness in this case.”

 

Iwaizumi sighs. What was he doing getting so possessive of a girl he just got to know this past weekend? They weren’t even dating for god sakes, and he was still getting to know her. Clearly she thought of him only as a friend (for now), which of course is fine. But he hoped that by spending some more time with her in class and outside of class they could get closer.

 

“Oikawa, we have to crush those Karasuno bastards during our match with them,” Iwaizumi says with determination.

 

“Oh Iwa-chan, that was the plan all along,” Oikawa replies with a sinister smile.

 

[]

 

Serina sat down her tray of food on the cafeteria table. Christine and Lorraine are talking about some shoujo anime they both had recently watched.

 

“See my favorite shoujos are the ones with strong female characters,” Christine says.

 

“Mine too! I hate it when the girl just cries all the time and is so weak. Like damn girl, grow up,” Lorraine responds.

 

“But to be honest, Kimi ni Todoke is good even though the main girl cries like all the time. You should watch it Lorraine. You too Serina.”

 

“Christine you know I can’t take those shows seriously,” Serina says. “But if you really think it’s worth watching, then sure I’ll watch it sometime.”

 

“In that case LOL nah.”

 

“I’ve actually been meaning to watch that sometime,” Lorraine says, “but I’ve been too busy recently.”

 

“Too busy doing what?” Christine questions.

 

“Oh you know, important stuff.”

 

“So reading rated M and E fanfic,” Serina jokes, but Lorraine looks like a deer in the headlights.

 

“Oh my god,” Christine says, holding back laughter.

 

“Lorraine, no, you can’t be serious,” Serina says, disappointed immediately covering her face.

 

“I’m sorry! Actually…no I’m not,” Lorraine says with a sinful laugh.

 

“Well that was more information than I ever needed to know,” Christine says while shaking her head. “So anyways, since Serina’s been talking to Iwaizumi, it got me thinking, what do you guys look for in a guy? Like, what’s your type?”

 

God why did they have to talk about this. Christine needed to put the shoujo manga down once and for all. But Serina decides she’ll think about the question seriously.

 

“Well, he has to be Korean. Or at least like half-Korean. I might allow him to be a quarter Korean if he’s really hot.”

 

“Lorraine, you have to have other preferences besides ‘Korean,’” Christine deadpans.

 

Lorraine laughs and shrugs. Christine and Serina both shake their heads at their Filipino friend.

 

“Okay, besides being Korean, I guess I like taller guys? I mean I dated Kuroo. Oh and guys who work out or play a sport. And I like brown eyes. And I like guys who have tragic back stories where they killed their entire ninja clan except their younger brother so that they could protect their younger brother, like hot damn that turns me on.”

 

“Okay that’s an acceptable answer, except for that last part, we’re just going to ignore that,” Christine declares.

 

Christine turns and looks at Serina expectantly, but Serina doesn’t have an answer. Honestly she just had never really thought about too much about it, so before Christine can ask out loud, Serina says, “You next Christine.”

 

“Fine, but don’t think you’re getting out of this,” Christine says, glaring and pointing at Serina for emphasis. “Okay so you guys know who my crush is already, and he fits my type pretty well, but let me go ahead and describe my ideal man.”

 

Oh god it sounded like Christine has put way too much thought into this.

 

“First of all, he has to be toned but not overly buff. He has to be smart, but not smarter than me. Also, he must be artistic in some way, maybe a painter? He has to like cats, he absolutely cannot be allergic to cats, that’s an automatic reason to break up with him. Also, he has to like to travel, and be adventurous, I need someone who is not afraid to go skydiving with me. And-”

 

“Christine,” Lorraine thankfully says to cut her off. “Usually a type has to do with appearance. Like what makes your kokoro go doki?”

 

“Lorraine you’re going to hell just for saying that,” Serina says.

 

“Oh girl, there was no doubt that I was going to go to hell. Sometimes I just like to make sure though.”

 

“Well,” Christine says, getting the conversation back on topic. “I guess dark hair, and dark eyes? But I also like blue eyes. Hmm I don’t know, I know it when I see it.”

 

“Well that’s a dumb answer, but whatever. Serina what about you?” Lorraine asks.

 

“Makoto,” Serina says only half-jokingly.

 

“Serina that’s an unacceptable answer, we mean irl boys not anime boys,” Christine clarifies.

 

Ugh, did she really have to answer? “I don’t know, lunch is almost over, so can we just drop it for now?”

 

Christine squints her eyes and stares Serina down, but then says, “fine. But I’m not dropping this.”

 

Serina rolls her eyes, but accepts this fact. _Why is Christine like this?_

 

[]

 

Serina sits down in the grass beside the tennis courts that are behind Nekoma. That stupid question that Christine and Lorraine had asked earlier about her type was still nagging her. Now that the school day was over, she figured she might as well come up with something to get Christine and Lorraine off her case, when suddenly her phone lights up with a text notification.

 

[Iwaizumi] What are you up to? There’s no practice today since we don’t practice on Mondays. Want to hang out?

[Seirna] I'm waiting for Christine to finish playing tennis. We were gonna go to dinner after this at one of our favorite Italian restaurants. You can join us if you want?

[Iwaizumi] Cool :] What restaurant? Are you guys going to go straight there from Nekoma?

[Iwaizumi] Also Oikawa saw me texting and asked if he can come too

[Serina] Yeah he can come. Verso is the name of the restaurant. And yeah we are gonna go right from here so if you want to car pool, just be here in like a half hour or any time before that

[Iwaizumi] I'm just going to drive over now, see you soon

[Serina] Alrighty

 

Serina didn't even realize that she had started smiling while she was texting him. She is glad she will get to hang out with him and Christine tonight, and Oikawa is fun too. Although she had just become friends with Iwaizumi this past weekend, she found that she really enjoyed his company. With him around, she wouldn't be able to talk weeb with Christine, but Iwaizumi shared so many of her other interests that it was always still really fun.

 

Serina watches Christine laugh as she switches her grip on her tennis racket so that she was holding it like a baseball bat. She then swung at the tennis ball that Adam had gently served to her side of the court and hit it with so much force and at such a bad angle that it flew high over the fence that caged the courts and into the woods behind. Christine then smacks her face with her palm and begins running towards the exit of the courts so that she could go get the ball.

 

Serina was so engrossed in the scene that she didn't hear the person approaching her from behind.

 

“Serina-senpai?” A nervous voice asks.

 

Serina turns around to see one of her classmates approaching her timidly. He is wearing a yellow tank top and black shorts that are borderline booty shorts. He is of African descent and had blond short curly hair. Serina is pretty sure he is in her AP Government class, and since he was here after school and in that outfit, she figures he must be on the track team.

 

“Oh hey,” is all she responds with since she has no idea what his name is. She is horrible at remembering names.

 

“I'm Noah, we’re in AP gov together.” Serina is very grateful that he says his name. “Do you have a second to talk?”

 

Since Serina is waiting for Christine to finish practicing tennis with the guys’ team and for Iwaizumi to arrive, she figures she has time to hear what Noah wants to say. She has no idea what he would want to talk to her about, it's not like they had any particularly difficult assignments to do in AP gov, but maybe he wants someone to study with?

 

“Sure, what's up?”

 

He seems to become even more nervous now that he has the chance to talk to her, which confuses Serina. Maybe he wasn't used to talking to new people?

 

“Do you… do you want to get something to drink from the vending machines senpai?” He stutters out.

 

“Uh… sure, yeah I'll go get a drink with you,” Serina responds. She is kinda thirsty from sitting outside on the strangely warm March day.

 

She gets up from her spot in the grass and begins walking beside Noah as they headed into Nekoma.

 

“So I overheard you talking about Iron Man in class today, and I think it's really cool that you like superheroes.”

 

Okay…?  I mean yeah that's freakin right that superheros are cool, but that was kind of a random comment.  She thinks about it and recalls talking about Iron Man with her friend Victoria during class after her friend had seen her phone’s ironman cat background.

 

They walk inside and discuss a bit about Iron Man and other superheroes in general. Serina finds that she isn't enjoying herself like she did when she talks with Iwaizumi, and thus she doesn’t think that she could really be good friends with Noah. But anyone who likes superheroes is cool in her books, so she figures they could at least be school friends.

 

They make their way to the vending machines, but as Serina pulled out some money Noah stops her by putting his hand on hers. Serina did not like physical touch, especially from strangers, so she politely and quickly moves her hands away from his.

 

“Let me buy your drink for you,” Noah offers.

 

“That's okay, you don't have to.” Serina is now getting a little suspicious of this guy’s intentions, but she doesn’t want to be rude (and literally isn’t capable of being rude).

 

“No, I insist,” Noah says with a smile. Oh god, he is definitely trying to flirt with her or something.

 

Serina decides she should consider him seriously. She tries to think about if he fit her type despite the fact that she had no idea what her type is exactly. Honestly the first thing that came to mind when thinking about her type is still just Makoto, not only is he hot af, but he is also very kind and a cat-lover. But that is her anime boyfriend, and after thinking about it more, she decides that she likes guys with a little more muscle on them, but not too much, and maybe with colorful eyes, like blue or green. And she prefers that they have short, dark hair, and similar interests to her own.

 

With that in mind, she evaluates Noah. She barely knows the kid, knows none of his interests besides superheroes, and didn’t really feel attracted to him on a physical level.

 

So Noah is not her type and she feels no doubt about the fact that she doesn’t want to date him, but she figures the quickest way to get out of this situation was to simply just let him buy her the drink, so she doesn’t oppose him a second time and asks for a lemonade.

 

After he hands her the lemonade she begins to walk back towards the tennis courts, hoping that Noah would follow since she no longer felt comfortable being alone with him, and the school is pretty much cleared out. Noah seems hesitant to follow, but then begins walking with her much to Serina’s relief. 

 

They arrive back at the tennis courts and continue to talk (since Noah wouldn’t leave). Their conversation doesn’t flow well and is often filled with awkward silences that Noah would try to fill by changing the subject. Serina is beginning to pray for this to end.

 

Iwaizumi should be showing up soon, but she doesn’t want to be rude and look at her phone to check for texts from him while Noah is talking to her. The struggle.

 

Another awkward pause begins to stretch and Noah looks as if he might actually give up on the conversation now and head back over to track practicce, but then he glances up and sees some of the girls’ tennis team players who are playing tennis with the guy’s team.

 

“You know,” Noah says, looking straight into Serina’s eyes to make sure he had her full attention. Serina’s spidey senses are tingling and telling her she is not going to like what he is about to say, but she couldn’t think of a way to get out of this conversation, so she simply braces herself.

 

“You would look really good in one of those short tennis skirts ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).”

 

Serina has to physically stop herself from screaming into the void. She could physically feel her lifespan shortening because of this interaction.

 

“Like, I think you would look really cute in anything short like that ;)”

 

Serina can’t quite figure out how he is able to insert the emojis into his words, but there is no denying that that’s what she is hearing.

 

Serina doesn’t even know what to say to those comments, her mouth slightly open in shock. She closes her mouth, and decides to say nothing, hoping that he will leave if she stops talking.

 

“Hey so, what are you doing this weekend?” Oh god please no. Serina cannot lie for the life of her, she just isn’t capable.

 

“Um, I have to do club stuff on Saturday,” Serina makes sure to not say which club, or which Saturday.

 

“What about Sunday?”

 

“Hey Serina, who’s your friend?” Serina isn’t religious, but she is thanking every god out there for having Iwaizumi show up at that moment.

 

Iwaizumi immediately notices how extremely uncomfortable Serina looks, and gives the guy she is talking to what he thinks is only a slightly pissed look since he is mad that this dude was being so inconsiderate to her feelings. But it must be a wee bit angrier looking than he thinks because the scrawny blond guy looks seriously scared.

 

“Uh, sorry- um, I need to get back to track practice. It was nice talking to you Serina-senpai!” Noah quickly says before jogging off.

 

Iwaizumi watches him go, and then looks down at Serina who is sitting in the grass. She had a ◉_◉ look on her face, and looks sorta dead inside.

 

“Who was that?” Iwaizumi asks, slightly alarmed.

 

Serina snaps out of her trance. “Oh, um, he’s in my AP gov class, his name is Noah. I think he just tried to hit on me?” As soon as she said the words she felt awkward for some reason, like she shouldn’t be discussing this with Iwaizumi.

 

“Oh,” Iwaizumi says, an unreadable expression on his face.

 

“Hey, you guys ready to get going?” Christine says as she approaches them. Serina didn’t even notice that Christine finished up already, but is glad that she doesn’t have to continue having this conversation with Iwaizumi. She never really thought about whether or not Iwaizumi might also have other intentions. Did he want to date her?

 

No, he just wants to be friends, she is sure of it.

 

“Yeah, I’m pretty excited to try this restaurant you guys both like. Oikawa said he’d meet us there.”

 

“Cool, let’s get going,” Christine says.

 

The group has a great time at Verso. Oikawa and Iwaizumi both are saddened that they had never been to the restaurant before, and are very thankful that Serina and Christine introduced them to it. To convince the first timers that the marinara sauce was second to none, Christine flat out starts drinking it straight from the cup, much to Iwaizumi’s horror and Oikawa’s amusement.

 

Although Serina has a lot of fun, she keeps thinking back to the expression Iwaizumi made after she told him about what happened with Noah. Was she seeing things, or did his expression have a hint of jealousy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holly: this chapter is too long, summarize please
> 
> Me: but holly this is my shortest chapter yet and I slay Serina in this chapter really good
> 
> Serina: -_- 
> 
> Holly: it’s too long, idk how you people expect me to read this
> 
> Me: holly
> 
> Holly: xD
> 
> Serina: Holly no
> 
> Holly xD xD XD
> 
> Me: Holly pls don’t do this to us
> 
> Holly: xDDDDDDDD
> 
> Spongebab: babe pls u got to fuckin stop that, I’m dying here
> 
> Me: You too Spongebab?
> 
> Spongebab: Let’s just say, I used to use that face unsarcastically. Dark times


End file.
